


As Time Goes By

by GulJeri



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Multi, Post-Korea
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-16
Updated: 2015-11-27
Packaged: 2018-03-29 11:31:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3894745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GulJeri/pseuds/GulJeri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawkeye is trying to move on with his life after Korea. It sounds so easy, but easier said than done. Hawkeye hasn't been quite the same, and though he tries to make connections with those around him, there some sort of distance between himself and others that he can't quite understand.</p>
<p>Upon visiting his girlfriend who is studying in Boston, Hawk runs into an old 'friend' who is giving a lecture at his girlfriends school.</p>
<p>Charles too has been working to get his life back. He never thought it would have been so challenging. He's home in his beloved manor on Beacon Hill, with his dream job, and courting a woman who is perfect for him by the standards of high society and his family.</p>
<p>But nothing feels quite right, not as perfect as he had imagined it to be, and anything less than perfection is frustration. </p>
<p>When Pierce shows up to a lecture Charles is giving, they speak afterwards about that 'off' feeling.</p>
<p>In this they find a connection that is lacking in other relationships; they understand one another.</p>
<p>Hawkeye and Charles begin to write to one another after Pierce leaves Boston, and the relationship that follows is full of troubles and triumphs, and a kind of battle all its own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. So We Meet Again

It was spring in Crabbapple Cove, and that of course meant that the crabapple trees were blooming. Branches were laden and overflowing with baby-pink blossoms, the air sweetly scented. It was wonderful to come to work and smell that fragrant perfume on the lazy breeze rather than the questionable odor that drifted from the mess tent, and the even fouler odor that drifted in from the latrines.

 

Dr. Pierce's office was situated downtown in an old brick building that was part of a strip along Main street; Clancy's Hardware, Yoder Family Pharmacy, Mother's Bakery, the post office. Norman Rockwell couldn't have painted a prettier view of Americana.

 

Every morning before work Hawkeye stopped at Mother's for a pastry and coffee—coffee that tasted like coffee, not like something drained out of an army Jeep. He read the paper and ignored the children scurrying down the sidewalk to school, or to the park in the summer. They still gave him a hard time, the kids did, but he dealt with it the way he dealt with everything.

 

When he had children in the office he was all jokes and smiles with them. He even had his Groucho glasses in a drawer and liked to put those on when he needed to give booster shots.

 

Booster shots! What a joy it was to do such simple things now. The only place he ever saw chests torn away, bellies full of shrapnel, and missing limbs, were in his nightmares.

 

Those were frequent, but at least he had something good to wake up to now. That helped him get through.

 

He plunged his fork into his breakfast that morning. No more powdered eggs, spam on a shingle, or creamed _anything._ This morning it was a fresh slice of apple pie, the kind with the crumbly topping, the apple chunks and cinnamon-sweet goo on the inside still delightfully warm.

 

He lifted the forkful to hover beneath his nose and closed his eyes as he took a nice, long, whiff. He hadn't been able to shake the habit of sniffing his food, but at least now it smelled  _good._

 

This morning he didn't have a newspaper to read. That was a break from routine, but he still had something to read.

 

A letter.

 

He'd already read it once, but decided to read it again.

 

It was from a girl he'd met shortly after he'd come home from Korea.

 

Hawk hadn't been in any state to start on a relationship, but it had started on him, whether he'd been ready or not.

 

Crabapple Cove had a “Welcome Home” celebration for its sons and daughters who had been gone to the war.

 

Hawkeye had refused to attend, but at last had given in only to please his father who had insisted.

 

It was there that he'd met Emma. Well, re-met her was more like it. Everyone in Crabapple Cove knew everyone else.

 

But when Hawkeye had gone away to Korea, Emma had still been in high school. She'd worked the counter at the drugstore serving up sodas and milkshakes and floats.

 

She found him when he'd taken a walk to get away from the crowd and the celebration, and they'd ended up strolling together and talking as the evening had dimmed down to night.

 

She wanted to be a doctor and had gotten accepted to Boston University School of Medicine.

 

They spent the summer together before she left for Boston, and then they'd argued about the winter holidays. Hawkeye had wanted to spend them with his father, a classic New England white Christmas, at home. It felt like ages since he'd had that, and while he had known that the war had taken something away, that Christmas wouldn't ever feel the same anyway, he had still wanted to spend it with his father. Emma had wanted Hawkeye to come to Boston and spend it with her, since she wouldn't be returning home.

 

Eventually she had dropped it, had said that she understood, and Hawkeye promised to come down on her next break.

 

That would be spring break, and he was leaving in only two days for Boston.

 

He knew he should be delighted and looking forward to it, but instead his stomach was squirming, and it certainly had nothing to do with the apple pie.

 

Hawkeye finished up his last two days at the office, packed his bags, and headed to Boston.

 

Emma greeted him with a kiss which he pretended to return eagerly. This was new for him; with a partner he wasn't one to pretend. Since their disagreement at Christmas it simply felt like the gulf between them was widening. Like he did with so many other people, he simply felt disconnected from her.

 

No one but those who had been there could understand what the war had claimed. No one else could understand why it still kept him up at night even though he was home now. No one could understand his anxiety, his mood swings, and his aversion to young children.

 

No one could understand—or was that another thing wrong with him? That lack of connection with others. Just how broken was he?

 

Well, he wasn't planning on talking to another Sidney Freedman anytime soon.

 

He had decided to try and figure these things out on his own.

 

Some job he was doing of it too, he thought, as he pasted a smile on for Emma.

 

“Ah, Bean Town,” he said, gesturing the scenery around him.

 

That brought back memories of he or Klinger having referred to Boston as 'Bean Town' in front of a certain hoity-toity Major.

“The more you eat, the more you--”

 

“Hawkeye,” Emma smacked him lightly, playfully, on the arm.

 

“So, what do you have planned for us? I could think of a few things,” he winked at her exaggeratedly, flirtatiously, putting on the charm.

 

It felt so hollow it hurt.

 

“I thought I'd take you to a couple of restaurants I enjoy—nothing too fancy, of course, I'm on a collegiate budget.”

 

“I hear that pays worse than the army,” Hawk joked.

 

Emma laughed, predictably.

 

“But it's better food than what's served at the cafeteria,” she added, “so I splurge now and then.”

 

“I bet they don't serve cream of weenie, or powdered eggs, in the cafeteria.”

 

“And we can go for a walk one day. There's a long path along the Charles River that starts at the Museum of Science, and passes several college campuses, including mine.”

 

“Charles, Boston, I feel like I'm in the Swamp again.”

 

“Hawkeye...” Emma paused, giving his hand a squeeze, and getting his attention, “do you... always have to talk about Korea? You're not there, you're here. Please... remember you're here. _I'm_ here.”

 

Her hand gently brushed his jaw.

 

“Right. We're in Boston,” it came out more snappish than he had wanted it to, or maybe he had wanted it to be snappy. He was irritated. Why? Who the hell knew why. Her saying that to him just got under his skin, as if he didn't know where he was, “I sure as hell can tell the difference between here and there. I don't need you or anyone else to tell me where here is and where there is and which one I'm in!”

 

He yanked his hand from hers, and took a few paces forward.

 

“Hawkeye, don't do this! You've only just gotten here!”

 

She hurried to catch up with him.

 

“I... I'm sorry,” Emma said lowly, “let's just have a good time while you're here. I've even signed us both up to attend a medical lecture at Harvard tomorrow evening. It'll be wonderful. Hawk, please?”

 

The next evening Hawkeye found himself fidgeting in an uncomfortable chair in a Harvard lecture hall.

 

“What's the point of doing a lecture over spring break? Everyone's supposed to be breaking, not going to class.”

 

“Some of us find our education more important than breaking,” Emma replied.

 

“Oh, I love to break. I do it at least once a week, sometimes more, depending on the weather, and the openings in my schedule,” Hawk said, taking the program from her.

 

He opened it up and scanned the names of the speakers, and came to one which was very, very familiar.

 

_Chief of Thoracic Surgery, Boston Mercy, Charles Emerson Winchester III, M.D._

 

“This is unbelievable,” Hawkeye dropped the program into his lap.

 

“I know, there are so many top-of-the-line physicians on this list, and we're getting a chance to hear them speak,” Emma was far more enthusiastic than Hawkeye was.

 

“We could just leave and you could hear me speak. I like to hear me speak, don't you? Don't forget, I'm a top-of-the-line doctor, too.”

 

“Yes, my sister Bernice told me she took little Bobby in to see you just the other day. He stepped on a nail and had to have a tetanus shot,” Emma smiled.

 

“Yeah, that's right. Good kid.”

 

Hawkeye gripped the arms of his chair with clammy, uncomfortable hands.

 

“He really loved the colorful band-aid you gave him.”

 

“Oh, well, you know me. I'm a colorful character, what can I say,” another forced grin, this one more obvious than the others he'd been struggling with.

 

“Hawk, are you okay?”

 

“Fine! Just fine. I can't _wait_ to hear this Dr. Chuckles The Third speak. I bet he's a real classy fellow.”

 

Emma gave him a strange look, but could say no more; the lecture was beginning.

 

Hawkeye took joy in the fact that Charles wasn't the first speaker. Knowing Winchester, the fact that he had to go on after someone else, in fact three someone elses, must have irked him and jabbed at that pride of his.

 

Ah, but there he was.

 

It was actually jarring to see Charles in something other than army drab.

 

His hair was neatly trimmed, his double-breasted suit looked expensive and stylish, obviously tailored. It was quite a contrast to Hawk's outfit—a loud patterned, short sleeve button up, with slacks and red suspenders. He wore the suspenders quite a bit; they reminded him of B.J.

 

Charles looked like he'd even lost a bit of weight, which Hawkeye found unusual. With all those snobby foods that Charles had talked about missing from home (even though he'd had his mummy dearest send all sorts of 'treats' to Korea), Hawkeye would have imagined the former Major should be enjoying his meals quite a bit.

 

If his appearance was jarring, his voice certainly wasn't.

 

That hadn't changed, of course. That cultured Bostonian accent, the slow and yet almost precise way he dragged out certain vowel sounds, his fondness for flaunting his extensive and overinflated vocabulary; it was certainly Charles.

 

Hawkeye slunk down in his seat a bit, and closed his eyes as Charles spoke. Strange sensations were washing over him. The voice was annoying, and yet it was one of the most familiar things he had experienced since coming home.

 

Sad, Hawkeye. Very sad, he thought.

 

His eyes fluttered open at an odd pause in the speech. Charles was looking right at him, and Charles had gone pale. His face and the bare part of his head were glistening with sweat—oh, no—perspiration. After all, a Winchester _does not_ sweat.

 

Charles gripped the edge of the podium, licked his lips, and turned his gaze away from Hawkeye.

 

“Ah, pardon me. Where was I? Oh yes...” Charles shuffled his papers, and continued on, but Hawk could see it in the way Charles held himself that something was wrong.

 

The rest of his lecture Charles seemed a bit distracted, and hurried, and several times he gave a quick, anxious, glance to Hawkeye before resuming.

 

With a hasty 'Thank you', and a curt nod, Charles made his exit from the stage.

 

Hawkeye excused himself to 'use the latrine'.

 

He caught Charles in the hallway, mopping his face with an embroidered handkerchief.

 

“No! Pierce—what--” Charles blue eyes were wide on him, and the doctor backed himself against the wall.

 

“Charles, don't freak out on me. I'm in Boston visiting my girl. She wanted to come to this lecture. Fancy seeing you here.”

 

“Oh... good heavens...” Charles slumped against the wall, relieved, “I thought I was--” he didn't finish that sentence.

 

A Winchester did not have flashbacks.

 

“Having a nightmare,” Charles finished, adding some acidity to the comment for good measure.

 

“Oh no, it's me, large as life. Speaking of large, you're looking less of it,” Hawkeye patted Charles' midsection.

 

Charles looked down his nose in the classic 'I am offended, get your hands off of me, you cretin' look. He also seemed to be appraising Hawk's outfit with classic disdain—the slight downturn of the corners of his mouth, and subtle crinkle of his nose. It was a typical display of Winchester disapproval. But shortly he came back to their conversation.

 

“I've been busy,” Charles said dismissively, “after all, being Chief of Thoracic Surgery at Boston Mercy does tend to keep one on ones toes.”

 

“Don't worry, Charles,” Hawkeye reassured him, “you haven't changed _that_ much.”

 

Charles was still waving around his name and title as if it were pure gold that ought to dazzle every eye that might look upon it. Good ol' Charles.

 

“You've changed a bit yourself, Pierce. A bit more snow on the roof?” Charles chuckled.

 

“At least I've got snow. I see yours is continuing to melt.”

 

Charles rolled his eyes upward towards his hairline, or lack thereof.

 

“So you're... here with a girl, are you? Pray tell—how did you meet a young lady from Boston?” Charles asked, wondering why he cared to even continue this conversation.

 

The truth was that the conversations he held with his colleagues, the society big wigs, his family, even his dear sister Honoria... there was something incredibly fake about them these days.

 

As much as Charles loathed to admit it, talking to Pierce seemed more real than any conversation he had had in ages. How sad that was; they weren't even conversing about anything important. It was the usual sort of inane and childish banter from Pierce that he had grown to expect upon facing each new and terrible day in the 4077th.

 

Why then did it now seem like a breath of fresh air? The air in Korea had certainly not been fresh—it stank of blood, infection, bad food, and filthy latrines. Even Hawkeyes' jokes weren't fresh.

 

“She's not from Boston, just visiting. She's studying to be a doctor,” Hawkeye explained.

 

Charles began to mop his face again.

 

“What's this, are you sweating, Charles?” Hawkeye teased with an impish, boyish smile.

 

“We've been through this before, Pierce. A Winchester does not sweat.”

 

“I must be cracking up again, because I could swear that your face is all shiny.”

 

“Not shiny at all,” Winchester insisted, “but I could use some air.”

 

“We could all use some air. I hear it's great for the lungs,” Hawkeye said, as he followed Winchester to the nearest exit.

 

The building opened up onto the Yard which boasted blooming trees and a perfect expanse of emerald grass. During the school year it would be swimming with students but on break there were only a few meandering here and there along the winding walkways.

 

Charles found a bench beneath a hackberry tree that was full of tiny white blossoms. Here and there the petals fell like a sweet spring snow.

 

Hawkeye took a seat next to him.

 

“I never thought I'd be... _graced_ with your presence again,” Charles said, and Hawkeye wondered if he only imagined that there was something more behind the sour notes of that sentence.

 

“Yeah, I figured I'd seen the last of you when you set out in that garbage truck.”

 

“Don't remind me. It was extremely undignified, though admittedly, the overwhelming relief of _getting the hell_ out of that cesspool blotted out everything else at the time.”

 

“Ah, the good ol' cesspool,” Hawkeye smiled.

 

“Indeed,” Charles tucked his handkerchief away into an inner pocket of his suit jacket.

 

“Might I ask what else the little lady has planned for you on your visit? If you'd like some ideas, I suppose I could make some suggestions... if you could afford them,” Charles said.

 

“Keep your suggestions to yourself. We have enough planned. She wants to go to the symphony tomorrow night,” Hawkeye rolled his eyes.

 

Charles stiffened.

 

“The... Boston Symphony,” he said slowly.

 

“No, we thought we'd scurry over to France, or somewhere.”

 

The joke fell flat, and Hawkeye immediately regretted having mentioned the symphony. Charles was staring out across the Yard with a far away look in his eyes, and tears pooled against his lashes.

 

Hawkeye choked on a knot in his throat, and he looked down at his lap, where he fidgeted with his hands.

 

“I do hope you enjoy yourselves,” Charles said at length, aiming for calm, cool, politeness, but sounding bitter instead.

 

“What about you? I know you're a big shot at Boston Mercy these days, but do you have yourself a girl? Hm?” Hawkeye nudged Charles with his elbow.

 

Charles gave a small huff through his nose.

 

“I am courting a lady of high society,” he said, “in fact, it is likely that we will marry. We both hail from very old, very prominent families, and grandmama Winchester approves.”

 

“I think you're forgetting something.”

 

“And what would that be, Pierce?”

 

“Well geeze, Charles, do you love her?”

 

Hawkeye looked at the other man increduously.

 

“I believe that is no business of yours, thank you,” Charles said, tilting his chin up in a small act of defiance that said he was done with that particular conversation.

 

“But that's terrible! Doesn't love mean something to you? After all the hell we've been through, don't you think we deserve some kind of happiness here?”

 

Hawkeye got up from the bench to better make his point standing, and with hand gestures.

 

“But you're just going to do whatever your hoity-toity family wants you to do. Doesn't anybody in your family care about your feelings? Don't you care about your feelings? Do you even _have_ feelings or is your heart too clogged up with dollar signs?”

 

Hawkeye began to stomp away, fed up with this, and stinging because his rant didn't just apply to Charles.

 

He wasn't happy with Emma, and yet he continued the charade, and he didn't even have some snooty family to please by doing so.

 

“Pierce!” Charles shouted, “I don't have to take this from you!”

 

Charles caught up to him and they continued to walk.

 

“Then don't take it. Go away, Charles.”

 

“How childish!” Charles nearly bellowed.

 

“If you're so upset about it, why are you following me?”

 

Charles said nothing to that for quite some times as they walked. He simply stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket, the way he often kept them in the pockets of his white coat, when they'd been in Korea.

 

“You're... not wrong, Pierce.”

 

Hawkeye smirked smugly at that but he didn't press. That was the closest one would ever come to hearing Charles say that someone else was right.

 

“A person of my standing can afford many things, but even still, there are yet some things that I cannot afford.”

 

“Clear as mud,” Hawkeye said, “care to elaborate?”

 

Charles didn't know why he was talking to Hawkeye at all.

 

Despite their trademark bickering and irritation of one another while doing time in Korea, they really had grown a bond of sorts... but even a fungus grows a bond with its host.

 

“I can't afford scandal, Pierce. My career, my family, my position in society, and my legacy, are all very carefully balanced and I cannot upset them concerning myself with trivial romantics.”

 

“So it would be some big scandal if you broke things off with this...” Hawkeye trailed off, waiting for a name.

 

“Her name is Priscilla,” Charles provided.

 

“This Prissy--”

 

“ _Priscilla.”_

 

“This Priscilla.”

 

“Correct, Pierce, among other things.”

 

Hawkeye was quite interested and he had to know.

 

“Among what other things?”

 

“Nothing of your concern! Have you become the love-life police since we've returned to the states? Retired your physicians shingle? Well, we can all count our blessings on _that_ one,” Charles said.

 

“I'm just concerned about an old friend,” Hawkeye tried, but Charles nearly snorted, “alright, I'm curious.”

 

“Curiosity killed the proverbial feline, Pierce.”

 

“But satisfaction brought it back,” Hawkeye added, “people always forget that part of the little kitty ditty.”

 

The spring breeze picked up a bit carded through Hawkeye's graying hair, and through what was left of Charles. The men fell into step beside one another, unsure where they were going, both simply having similar thoughts that it was nice to have a walk without having to worry about landmines.

 

“She just doesn't understand, Charles,” Hawkeye said, after their walk had taken them to the edge of the Charles River.

 

A small dock jutted out from the shore like a hitchhikers thumb, and the two doctors listened to the boards thump quietly as their footsteps tread over them. Charles bent at the waist and leaned his elbows on the railing, while Hawkeye hopped up and sat on it, with his back towards the river.

 

“I know,” Charles answered, much to Hawkeyes surprise.

 

A long and not uncomfortable silence settled itself between the two then. Blossoms from the trees along the rivers edge fluttered down into the water like drifting cherubs, and the currents carried them onwards. At least some things could move on, Charles though to himself, as he watched the dainty flowers swim by.

 

He had gotten his dream job, was lined up to be wed to a woman who was perfect to welcome into his family, and sire him several little heirs. By all means Charles was successful, and he was carrying out his duties to his family, at home in his beloved Boston. Yet some of him, more of him than he cared to admit, was still in Korea.

 

It was unnerving how many things on a daily basis reminded him of being there. Sometimes he would wake up in the middle of the night and forget that he was in his parents estate on Beacon Hill. He would swear that he heard the incoming thunder of helicopter blades, and the terrifying rain of mortar shells, and he would see upon the darkened ceiling the faces of the ones he could not save—a flicker show of the dead and the dying.

 

He had no outlet now, his beloved music had been torn away from him, the thing that kept him sane. So now all he did was bottle it all up and one day? No, there was no 'one day'. A Winchester did not, would not, could not break.

 

He told himself that his new career was now his outlet, or that spending time with Priscilla was his new outlet, but neither of those things were true.

 

He could no longer enjoy music, and the memories, the nightmares, the things inside of him that he hadn't been able to leave behind gnawed at him so much that he'd even lost his appetite as of late.

 

Hawkeye seemed to be able to sense his thoughts, and Charles both despised and appreciated the empathy in the other mans eyes.

 

Hawkeye placed a hand over Charles. Neither of them looked at each other with wet eyes.

 

“I'm only in Boston for a week,” Hawkeye said quietly, “let's keep in touch after I'm gone.”

 

-x-

 

-x-

 

That night Charles had communion with his Cognac in his favorite crystal tumbler.

 

At first it was a rather formal date with his preferred drink, but at some point during the night, it became informal as he abandoned the tumbler on a side table and began to drink straight from the bottle.

 

At some point he began to cry, and then he began to write to Pierce, big sloppy drunken letters that were extremely unbecoming a Winchester. Hawkeye wasn't even leaving Boston for a week yet, and here was Charles crying all over a letter that he was already penning to the fool.

 

Charles ended up asleep on the floor of his fathers' study. If any of the help happened upon him in such a state, they dare not say.

 

Seven days later, after an evening with Priscilla in which Charles had felt completely numb, he tried the letter again.

 

_Pierce,_

 

_I am only writing to you from sheer boredom, nothing else. As I sit in my father's study, with a snifter of cognac, I recall your request as we lingered near the river, that we keep in touch._

 

_Seeing as how, at this moment, I have nothing better to do, why not?_

 

_How are things in your miniscule part of the world? Life must be simple and picturesque there, old ladies sitting on their porch swings with cold glasses of lemonade, children playing on the lawn, patients coming to your office with such banal maladies as spring allergies and bee stings._

_I can't fathom how you keep up with it all._

 

_As for me, I am staying quite busy. Work at Boston Mercy is going quite swimmingly. This weekend I will be attending a charity golf outing, and a polo competition with my dear sister. Priscilla would have come, but she's visiting her cousin, Amelia, in the Hamptons this weekend._

 

_Luckily, Honoria's husband, whom I only tolerate because she adores him, will be otherwise occupied._

 

_It will be quite nice, I admit, to spend some time together, just the two of us._

 

_I missed my dear sister the most while in Korea. Upon returning home, our relationship has been a bit strained._

 

_I've no idea why I should be telling you this, but I remember your words in Harvard Yard that day; how your young lady friend simply doesn't understand._

 

_I detest to sound as though I am feeling sorry for myself, but I will venture to say, that no one understands who has not been there. It is troubling, this disconnection that I feel, even with those I would name closest to my heart—and I'm not speaking of Benjamin Franklin or any other face on a slip of paper. Perhaps you do think so, as our last meeting would attest to, but my heart is not made (completely) of money._

 

_Perhaps we are simply being hasty. We wished so long to simply return home and resume our lives as though nothing had happened to ever interrupt them._

 

_In truth we've been home nearly a year, and though a year in Korea seemed closer to fifty, back home it is just the one, and perhaps it is simply not enough time to mend all of the carnage the war has left for us._

 

_We're surgeons. If there's something we're skilled at (some of course more so than others), it is mending wounds._

 

_Let us continue to sew our own stitches, Hawkeye. Eventually we may in fact mend ourselves._

 

_-Charles_

 

-x-

 

“Good morning, Mabel,” Hawkeye waved to the portly elderly woman who was behind the counter at the post office. Her hair was completely white, and done up in a bun, with a few stray bits framing her kind, bespectacled, face.

 

He made to walk past her towards his post office box, but she stopped him with conversation.

 

“You've gotten a letter from Boston,” she said, pushing her glasses up a bit on her round nose, “but it's not from Emma, it's a different address. Beacon Hill. Sounds fancy. How do you know some fancy person in Boston, Hawkeye?”

 

“Uh... just an old... somebody I know.”

 

“Is it someone you met in the war?” she asked.

 

It was strange how she sounded so kind, how she smiled at him, but her questions were so needling.

 

“Yeah, you got me. I'm gonna get my mail now,” he said, turning away from her.

 

Once he was at his box he turned the dial forcefully with irritation as he worked out the combination.

 

He didn't know why he should feel so angry, so violated, after all she was only curious. People in small towns were like that. They knew each others business. That's just the way things had always been in Crabapple Cove.

 

It just seemed like Hawkeye couldn't go anywhere without hearing about the war, without being questioned about it, or reminded of it in some way that would seem insignificant to anyone else.

 

He pulled out his mail and riffled through the bills until he came to the letter addressed from Beacon Hill.

 

Once outside Hawkeye decided to skip his usual breakfast at the bakery, and instead he went straight to his office, and barricaded himself into one of the exam rooms so he could read his letter in private.

 

His receptionist, Marietta, was already looking through the appointment book for that mornings schedule, with the radio on in the background. Hawk wanted to read his letter in peace and quiet.

 

He hadn't expected the letter to touch him in the way that it did, or to bring tears to his eyes. It also frustrated him because it reminded him of the old phrase 'physician heal thyself' and he just wasn't sure he could do it. Oh, sure, Hawk was great at pretending he was okay. He'd done that for a very long time, and he supposed he would keep on doing it.

 

He tucked Charles letter into the pocket of his white coat, behind his pen that was shaped like a pickle, and his homemade tongue depressor puppet.

 

They passed by at an easy pace. Hawkeye often enjoyed it, and yet sometimes he became so antsy that he drove Marietta crazy.

 

At some point he had become used to the fast pace of medical mayhem in Korea. It seemed infused into him now. When he was having one of those days where he couldn't keep still, when the thoughts and words were rushing through him, and out of him, and he was ready crawl out of his own skin, it was hard.

 

“Please, Marietta, just give me a tranquillizer,” he said.

 

He was behind her standing in front of the filing shelves, scanning over them.

 

“I'm going to rearrange these. That's what I'm going to do.”

 

“Dr. Pierce, that'll be the third time today,” Marietta said cautiously, as Hawkeye pulled out a handful of files.

 

“Ha! But I haven't yet arranged them in an ascending order by the number of letters in their last names,” he said.

 

Marietta winced.

 

Of course such an arrangement would be impractical but Hawkeye needed something to distract him, and after he'd done that, he'd put them all back in good old fashioned alphabetical order.

 

“Oh, look Dr. Pierce, it's Mrs. Bradley and her granddaughter, little Violet,” Marietta said brightly.

 

Pierce shoved the handful of files back onto the shelf and came around the front of the desk to greet them. He didn't even give Marietta time to check them in, just began talking at Mrs. Bradley a mile a minute, and ushered she and her granddaughter into the exam room.

 

Hawkeye pulled his Groucho glasses out of a desk drawer and slipped them on. Violet, whose cheeks were rosy with fever, immediately burst into a grin.

 

“Why, hello there, chickadee,” Hawkeye said, leaning in a bit towards the little girl, with a big smile, and a silly voice, “I hear you're feeling ill. What an ill feeling! And ill advised. Just don't tell me you're ill-mannered.”

 

She giggled at him.

 

“I have manners. My grandmother makes sure of it, sir.”

 

“Very good, very good, Violet—but tell me, are you a color, a flower, or a girl?” Hawkeye winked, “maybe all three rolled into one.”

 

She continued to laugh at his antics, hardly realizing that while he was joking, he was also pressing his stethoscope to her chest, or slipping a thermometer under her tongue, or shining a light into her eyes.

 

“It's so good to see Violet laughing,” Mrs. Bradley said, as Hawkeye used a tongue depressor and a small light to check the girls throat, “it's been difficult since we lost her father in the war,” the old woman whispered, as if Violet couldn't hear her anyway.

 

Hawkeye stiffened.

 

“But we're so _very_ proud of him,” Mrs. Bradley added, a tear coming to her eye, “and you too, of course, Benjamin.”

 

She place a hand on his knee.

 

Hawkeye bolted up from his stool, and away from her hand, and tore off his funny glasses.

 

“You're _proud?_ You're _proud_ that your son died? And proud of _me_? For what!” he yelled.

 

Violet cringed back on the exam table, the thin paper spread over it crinkling beneath her.

 

“You're proud of the ones I couldn't save? You're proud that I patched our boys up just to send them back to the front to die? What did they die for!”

 

Hawk was shouting, his hands clutched in front of him into angry fists, his eyes full of enraged tears.

 

Mrs. Bradley took Violet and swung the crying child onto her hip.

 

“WHAT ARE YOU PROUD OF!” Hawk cried.

 

Mrs. Bradley reached for the doorknob just as the door swung open. It was Marietta, looked frightened.

 

“Dr. Pierce! What is going on in here!”

 

“THERE'S NOTHING TO BE PROUD OF!”

 

“Nothing, dear, we were just leaving,” Mrs. Bradley squeezed past Marietta and made a hasty exit.

 

Hawkeye raked his arm across the surface of his desk, sending canisters of cotton swabs and q-tips, and tongue depressors, flying to the floor. He brought his fists down on the desk several times, and then curled up on the exam table, hiding his face in the crooks of his elbows.

 

Marietta moved closer, and placed a hand on his back.

 

“LEAVE ME ALONE!” Hawkeye shouted, and Marietta backed off, and closed the door behind her.

 

-x-

 

Hawkeye eventually fell into a fitful sleep full of nightmares and horrors.

 

When he woke up he was sweaty, stiff, and drained.

 

He ambled out of the exam room to find that Marietta was gone. She'd hung the 'closed' sign on the front door. Hawkeye was grateful for her dealing with his moods. He thought he'd bring her some flowers the next morning to brighten up her desk.

 

When Hawkeye arrived home he found his father cleaning fish on the porch. The mans worn and work-stained jeans were cuffed at the ankles, and littered with fish scales that glistened like a rain of nautical glitter.

“Hey, Dad,” Hawkeye lowered himself down onto the step next to his dad. He peered into the bucket at his Dad's side to see if there were more fish, and there were. He caught one of the slippery devils between too hands, and lifted it out of the bucket, “how are you?” Hawkeye asked, making the fishes wide mouth move as if it was talking, “I'm just _fin_ tastic.”

 

Daniel Pierce smiled at his son.

 

“I'm fintastic too,” he paused in his work to hand Hawkeye a fillet knife, “since you're home early, help an old man out.”

 

There was a small pile of fish, bare of their scales, stacked on a newspaper. They needed to be cleaned.

 

“Dad, I hate to break it to you, but these fish are naked,” Hawkeye said, grabbing one of them.

 

“Damn hooligans,” his father chuckled.

 

Hawkeye cut into the fish, first chopping the head and tail off. Next he made slits near each fin, then used a pair of pliers to pull the fins off of the fish.

 

“Fresh fish,” Hawkeye mused, “you're going to feed me fresh fish, not halibut patties, or that canned stuff.”

 

“The real deal, Hawk.”

 

Hawkeye reached into the opening left into the fish where the head had been removed, and curled his fingers inside, and pulled the innards out. He tossed them aside, and their old cat Moe, who had been curled up on the porch bannister, hopped down onto the grass for treat.

 

There had been three of the cats, brothers from the same litter, but Larry and Curly had died while Hawkeye had been in Korea. Larry had met his end on the chrome grill of Mr. Lewis's 1949 Packard, while Curly had come out on the wrong end of a scuffle with a rabid raccoon. Hawkeye recalled the letter in which his father had talked about having to put the cat down himself.

 

“How's your friend in Boston?”

 

“Charles? Oh he's—oh! You mean Emma!” Hawkeye wondered at that; strange that he'd think of Charles before his own girlfriend, “she's okay. She's studying hard, she probably hasn't had time to write lately.”

 

Or maybe it was that Hawkeye hadn't really felt like writing her since he'd come home from Boston.

 

Hawkeye picked up another skinned fish and began to clean it.

 

Three in and he knew he had done enough.

 

“These innards I'm pulling out are starting to remind of all the ones I've put back in,” he said, looking down at his bloody fingers, and feeling his skin crawl.

 

His father gave him a pat on the back.

“Go on and wash up, Hawk, I've got things under control,” the old man said.

 

“Good, at least one of us does,” Hawkeye said.

 

-x-


	2. Miss Park Avenue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this has taken so long. But this story is now my project for nanowrimo so it should get updated frequently now.

_Well, wow, look youse guys, Miss Park Avenue herself_. -Toughy. Lady and The Tramp, 1955

 

 

 

“Charles, you're so distracted tonight,” Priscilla said, in a prissy, nasally voice, “you haven't even complimented my new gown,” she said, “it's a Hubert de Givenchy, Charles. He's made gowns for Audrey Hepburn.”

 

“Oh yes, of course, it's quite lovely,” Charles said, and really it was.

 

The dress was white with fine gold detailing, all hand sewn and embroidered with such a delicate pattern. It came off the shoulders in a way that was both tasteful and alluring, and showed off Priscilla's ornate gold and diamond necklace, and matching earrings. Her dark hair was perfectly curled and pinned, and she wore a little pillbox hat that matched her dress, pushed forward on her head. Winged eyeliner, perfectly drawn brows, rouged cheeks, and red lips completed her look. Now that Charles noticed, she did look lovely. She always looked lovely. Yet somehow, she always looked predictable as well.

 

They hadn't planned to be matching, it had simply worked out that way. Charles' gold tie and cufflinks were a fine compliment to her look.

 

Tonight was dinner, and schmoozing at a prestigious downtown art gallery where Priscilla's brother had pieces on display.

 

The car pulled to a stop at the curb, and Charles' driver got out and opened Charles' door for him.

 

“Thank you, James,” Charles said to his driver, with a curt nod.

 

He'd always been kind to the staff, but since coming home from Korea, Charles had valued them even more, and he now went out of his way to thank them and show them courtesy.

 

Charles placed his fedora on his head, rounded the Rolls Royce, opened the door for Priscilla, and helped her up onto the curb. He never would have bothered himself opening the door, even for a lady, when he had his driver to get out and do it. But again; Korea had changed him.

 

He recalled when he'd first arrived at the 4077. Radar had scrambled to carry his suitcase and personal items to The Swap. Attempting to open the door with his arms full, Radar had dropped a box.

 

“Gee, sorry Sir, d'you mind?” Radar had asked, meaning for Charles to help by picking up the box.

 

“Not at all,” Charles had said, and stepped over the box and into the tent, a very pompous arrival indeed.

 

Priscilla unfolded herself from the car, and she smiled up at Charles. She rested her gloved hand at the crook of his elbow, and he escorted her into the building.

 

Charles frowned openly upon viewing the artwork of Priscilla's brother. Abstract Expressionism had recently gained popularity, due largely to Jackson Pollock, and Willem de Kooning. Charles loathed it—he cold see no artistic value in the splatter of paint on canvas. Her brother, on the other hand, had obviously embraced it.

 

Charles would rather it have been Impressionism so he could have commented on how the artist had done a superb job capturing the light and shadows with dappled brushstrokes, or Realism so he could have stared into eyes so expertly painted that he would have sworn they were staring right back, or Minimalism, Surrealism, _anything_ really, but what he was looking at.

 

Priscilla's brother seemed to have modeled his style more after de Kooning than Pollock. Most of his canvases consisted of geometric jumbles of color and lines. Some of the larger paintings toward the back of the gallery included irregularly drawn people whose body parts seemed to be arranged on the canvas haphazardly. That visual made Charles extremely uncomfortable.

 

They could have been paintings of the boys who had been forever arriving at the 4077—torn open, full of shrapnel, shredded, arms and legs only half attached to their bodies and twisted into unnatural shapes.

 

Charles drew a long breath in through his nose and let it out slowly.

 

Priscilla paid no attention, she had dislodged herself from his arm in order to schmooze and gush over her brother's work.

 

“Beautiful, aren't they?” a blond woman said, coming to stand beside Charles. She looked as if her hair had come from a bottle, and she seemed to be imitating Marilyn Monroe, right down to the beauty mark on her face which had probably been drawn on.

 

“You'll pardon me if I disagree,” Charles said, his accent stretching and softening the 'ar' sound in 'pardon', “it reminds me of... rather unpleasant things,” he said coolly.

 

“That's rather rude,” the woman said.

 

Charles couldn't bring himself to care. He was being honest, actually less than. He could have just come out and said that he hated it and wouldn't use it as toilet paper if it came down to the choice of that painting, or his own hand.

 

“You're obviously not a fan of art,” she said, pushing him to further his 'rudeness'.

 

“On the contrary, madam, I appreciate the work of a talented artist. This, however, is not that.”

 

She gave an indignant squeak at his bluntness, and left him there in front of the chaotic bodies and twisted limbs.

 

He was ready to leave the gallery much sooner than Priscilla was. He played his part by hovering nearby, and schmoozing as expected, but he had already decided that he was refusing to be polite about the artwork. When asked his opinion he gave it, allowing his loathing to drip from the delivery. He could tell that it was working Priscilla's nerves, but the fact that his mind was full of images of Korea, no matter how he tried to misplace them, had soured Charles' evening and he simply didn't care to put on pretense.

 

When Priscilla was ready to leave he followed her out of the building and down the sidewalk towards the place where they had reservations for dinner. She walked ahead of him now rather than taking his arm, her short heels clicking angrily against the sidewalk.

 

The restaurant was an old one which had always catered to the upper crust. Their food was fine French cuisine, and it was delectable to the palate, if not to the pocketbook.

 

“Order for me, Charles,” Priscilla said, giving him a heated stare over the top of her menu. These were the first words she'd said to him since they'd left the gallery, “I don't know French, I'm afraid. I'd like something with chicken, if they have it. No mushrooms, they upset my stomach.”

 

Charles nodded silently, and when he came back he ordered for himself and Priscilla.

 

“Pour moi, le canard rôti à la canneberge glaçure, et pour la dame... poulet à la provençale, s'il vous plaît,”Charles said, and handed the menus to the waiter, “and a bottle of your finest Sauvignon Blanc,” he added.

 

Priscilla's sour mood lifted a bit and she smiled at Charles with her red painted lips.

 

“I do like it when you speak French—so cultured,” she said.

 

Charles gave her a tight smile in return.

 

“I just wish you'd loosen up a bit tonight. Your parents haven't trained you to be _that_ stuffy, have they?” she asked. She unrolled her silverware from the silk napkin and placed it into her lap and smoothed it out.

 

“I'm sorry, Priscilla, but your brothers' art exhibit simply... pushed at a few buttons,” he said, and began to mirror her by unrolling his silverware and situating the napkin into his lap.

 

“Pushed the wrong buttons? What do you mean? What was so wrong with it that you had to spend the entire time being so rude about it?” she demanded.

 

Charles didn't want to talk about it. Even he found it a bit silly, and he was certain she wouldn't understand. She had never seen war, had never seen the inside of a person, nor bits and pieces of one. The worst trauma Priscilla had probably ever witnessed would be a paper cut or a broken nail. Did he swallow his pride and just say that his behavior had been wrong simply to smooth things over? Part of him was tempted to do so just so she'd stop trying to figure it out. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

 

For some reason he suddenly longed for his father's study, and a blank piece of paper, on which to write to Hawkeye. The twinge in his heart was strong, and it ached, and he knew what it was—he and Hawkeye understood each other in ways that people who had never stepped foot into the 4077 would never be able to touch. It didn't matter how carefully Charles explained it to Priscilla, even if he described to her in very graphic detail one of his reoccurring nightmares from Korea (and of course he wouldn't), she still would not, _could not_ understand.

 

“Fine, don't answer me,” she snapped, and lifted her glass of wine in one delicate hand and sipped.

 

Charles hadn't even noticed that their waiter had come back, filled their glasses, and left a bottle chilling in an icy bucket for them.

 

Was he really that distracted that he, a self-proclaimed vinophile, hadn't noticed the distinctive soft pop of cork from bottle?

 

He lifted his glass and swirled it gently, letting the scent of the wine tickle his nose so pleasantly. Upon sampling a sip, the white wine was fresh, crisp, and dry, just as a good Sauvignon Blanc should have been. It would certainly be the perfect accompaniment to their poultry dishes.

 

“It isn't something which I can explain very well,” Charles said, attempting to placate her while still remaining evasive.

 

“You? But you're always so good with words, Charles,” she said, “it's hard to believe you can't find the right ones now. You _won't_ find them, is more like it. You might be surprised how much better we could get along if you would actually talk to me.”

 

“You might be surprised at how much better we would get along if you would stop _nagging_ me,” he countered.

 

She gave a little snort of defense and went silent again.

 

Not a word was exchanged between them until their dinner arrived, and then there were only a few murmurs of praise for the culinary masterpieces that graces their plates, and nothing more.

Dinner was a bore but Charles supposed that was an improvement from earlier that evening. His driver took Priscilla home, and Charles properly walked her through the manor gates, and up to her door, and kissed her hand in a 'good night' gesture.

"There is something wrong," Priscilla said under the warm light of the porch lamp. She rested her hands on the wide lapels of Charles' overcoat.

"Just my manners. I'm afraid I did ruin our evening, didn't I?" Charles said apologetically.

"It isn't just that. You... aren't having second thoughts about the wedding, are you?"

Charles had a sudden bout of heartburn but he forced a smile, then smoothed it out so it would appear natural.

"No, no! Of course not, dear," he took her small hands in his, "don't think such a thing. Just... forgive me my sour mood."

Priscilla nodded, leaned up to kiss him once more, and disappeared into her home.

Settling back into the car for the ride back to Beacon Hill, he realized he was glad to have shed her for the day. That did not sit well with him at all, as it was certainly not a good sign given they were expected to marry and spend their lives together. He groaned loudly and slid down in his seat as much as his tall frame would allow.

At home Charles' parents were already in bed for the night. Honoria and her husband had recently moved out to their own place (minute by Winchester standards, and less than his dear sister deserved) but Honoria seemed to be happy.

It left the mansion on Beacon Hill feeling quite empty and dismal, however.

Charles dragged his feet through the sitting room and towards the liquor cabinet. He paused briefly to pass a sorrowful glance to the record player. His heart ached for music to ease him and take his stress and pain away as it once had. Oh, music had been everything to him. It had been as valuable to his heart as his hands were to his profession. Charles poured himself a tumbler of cognac and slumped onto an antique loveseat. He idly traced the brocade pattern on the richly colored upholstery, then pressed the tumbler to his lips and downed the shot in one go.

His thoughts drifted to the concert pianist who had come through the 4077th. He hoped that wherever that young man was, that he was still playing. The war may have disconnected Charles from music, but he hoped--he prayed--that that young man still had his passion. Perhaps he was composing one-handed music now, just as his predecessor had done.

Charles refilled his glass and downed that, then another, and another. He told himself that he certainly was not developing a drinking habit. In Korea it had been one thing--drinking had been a means of survival--and he'd only really gotten drunk a handful of times. Since he'd been home he'd woken up on the floor, his back yelling at him for it, more times than he would care to admit. His pride kept it in his head that he was fine. But he knew otherwise, and that just wasn't related to the drinking.

Once his life had fit together like the perfectly completed puzzle. Now the pieces were all ajar, and scattered, and some seemed to have gone missing altogether.

He felt the need for some sort of direction, which bothered him, because Charles had known his own direction from a rather young age. A Winchester made his own way. He did what was expected of him, yes, but he didn't wait around for someone else to clear a path to his goals. A Winchester made his own path and destiny. Now Charles felt adrift and he didn't understand why. He was where he had expected to be in life. He had met his biggest career goal, and soon he would meet the goal of marriage, and if the mumps hadn't worked him over too badly, he would reach the goal required of him by familial duty; having an heir to pass on the Winchester name and lineage.

Whether he wanted children was of no concern. Children, or at least one, was a requirement for people of the Winchester's status. A son must not let the family line die. To do so would be akin to betraying the family name altogether.

In truth Charles imagined his wife would simply raise the children. His own father had been severely lacking in the area of nurture, and Charles had no idea how he could manage it any better. He didn't dislike children, he simply felt unable to relate to them. In many ways he had never felt like a child himself, rather a tiny adult, constantly being molded into the thing he was meant to be when he was forty.

Oh, there were some happy times when he could recall things through the eyes of a boy, rather than a boy trying to be a man too soon. But those were few for him.

He rose from the loveseat and moved towards the record player once again. He stroked the arm, and gently rubbed the plate where the record would rest, and then considered bringing his fist down upon all of it.

 

-x-

 

_Dear Charles,_

_I tried to go fishing with my dad yesterday. It was a gorgeous fall day here in Crabapple Cove. The trees looked like blazes of fire, the grass crunched beneath my boots, there's that lovely smell of moldering things and the sweet tickle of allergens--perfect. We went to the same lake we've been going to since I was a boy. I have mostly fond memories of that lake, except for the time my cousin nearly killed me in it._

_That particular demon stayed quiet, though._

_It was actually Henry I got to thinking about as we sat there in the crisp air with our bobbers bumping up and down on the choppy water. Henry loved to fish. You'd catch him wearing his fishing hat more often than not. He really would have liked our lake, Charles. I would have given anything to have had him by my side yesterday, casting, reeling, laughing like nothing wrong had ever happened in the world._

_Sometimes I blame Radar for it. It wasn't his fault, of course, but it was he who had come into the OR to tell us. Henry Blake's plane was shot down over the sea of Japan. There were no survivors._

_He was going home, Charles. He was going home! To his family, to his friends, to a lazy lake somewhere full of fat fish just waiting for him!_

_He looked so dapper in that suit he wore when he said goodbye to us._

_Do you know what I hate most, Charles?_

_Nothing's the same as it used to be. We thought we'd come home and the world would be as it had been. Nothing changed back home, nothing changed at all, and we could just put the death, and blood, and nightmares behind us._

_But everything has changed._

_I can't go a day, sometimes an hour, without seeing life through the eyes of Korea. They took my eyes out of my head and replaced them with someone elses, I think._

_Sometimes I lay awake at night and I just wonder... if it's always going to be this way._

_-Hawkeye_

 

Hawkeye dropped the letter into the mail slot and shoved his hands into his pockets. He was struggling with depression, anxiety, and his PTSD that day. He'd called in and closed the office which was something he hadn't done since he'd been home. It had taken all of his energy to drag himself out of bed and take the letter to the post office. Still his hair was ruffled, uncombed, his face unshaven, his clothes looking like he'd dug them out the bottom of the laundry pile.

He felt like an old man, and he felt pointless on top of that. Anger was rumbling close behind but he hadn't the energy for that. He ambled along main street attempting to be normal but feeling farther and farther from it with each passing day.

People paused to say 'hello' to him. The best he could do was to give them a nod with a tight lipped smile which looked more like a grimace. He felt on edge, like he was prowling around a cage, but that imagery really made no sense to him. Crabapple Cove was supposed to be his home; a place where he felt comfortable and comforted.

He wondered if there was any place in the world where he could find those things again.

His thoughts briefly flicked to Emma, but imagining her holding him just made him feel numb. He was trying to hold onto that relationship just to have something, but he knew it was going nowhere, and that she would never understand him now.

He found himself missing B.J., and wishing they could keep in touch more than they did, but Beej was busy catching up with Peg, and Erin. Hawk had only gotten one letter from him since they'd all been home, and that was announcing that there was a new little Hunnicut on the way. B.J. seemed not to be struggling to catch up and start over the same way Hawkeye was. He had to admit he was a bit jealous of his old friend. How had B.J. been able to fall back into his old life so easily?

Hawkeye could figure out no answers for it.

Hawkeye spent the rest of the week haunting the post office, checking his P.O. box for a return letter from Charles, as though his life depended upon it.

By the following Monday he was rewarded with a letter addressed from Boston in Charles' neat and precise handwriting. He could hardly wait to tear it open and take in the words from what seemed to be the only person in the world who could comprehend what he was going through.

_Dear Hawkeye,_

_Unfortunately, I know too well what you mean about your eyes. I would rather not admit to it, but I suppose there's no reason to keep it from you, that I find myself seeing things just the same way. I think of that dreadful, damned, hell-hole more often than I would like to. In fact I would love to never have thought of it again, so long as I may live, but that seems an impossibility._

_You do know what it is, I'm sure. It's called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Of course a Winchester would never suffer from such a thing, but you may wish to research it. Perhaps you can discover for yourself a coping mechanism or two._

_As for me, I am doing well. In fact I am soon to be married. I have enclosed with this correspondence and invitation to my upcoming nuptials. I have no idea what I must be thinking to invite an uncultured bumpkin such as yourself to this ceremony, but I have done so, despite my better judgment. Please RSVP by the date given, and wear something that you didn't rent from a joke shop._

_-Charles_

 


	3. The Green Light

_“So long as Boston shall Boston be, And her bay tides rise and fall, Shall freedom stand in the Old South Church, And plead for the rights of all.”_ -John Greenleaf Whittier

 

Charles and Priscilla's wedding was being held at the Old South Church near Beacon Hill. The church was a gorgeous, gothic, building with a long and rich history dating back to the Revolutionary War and further. The congregation had seen such prominent historical figures as Mary Chilton, the first woman to step ashore at Plymouth, in 1620, American's first published black poetess, Phyllis Wheatley, and William Dawes who road with Paul Revere. Benjamin Franklin had been baptized at the Old South Church shortly after his birth, and it was at Old South Church where Samuel Adams was a member, and it was from the church that he gave the signal to begin the Boston Tea Party, and America's rebellion against England.

Today it was the site where Charles and Priscilla would be joined in matrimony.

Hawkeye stood on the curb on the Northwest corner of Copley Square, and tilted his head up to take in the old gothic architecture. The bell tower, or campanile, was extremely tall and seemed to be the focal point of the building, which boasted interesting brown, pink and gray stonework. The walls were done of Roxbury puddingstone; and there were many decorative carvings; topped off with a polychromatic roof of red and black slate tiles; and a great copper cupola.

It seemed fitting to Hawkeye that Charles would get married at such a place. It seemed to hold the sort of poise, dignity, and long history that Charles was so proud of in his own family line.

It almost made Hawkeye reconsider walking into the building wearing a cherry red clown nose.

-x-

A clown nose.

Hawkeye had shown up to Charles wedding in a clown nose.

Charles grabbed Hawkeye by the elbow and dragged him to a small room to the side of the cathedral sanctuary which was being used for the men's changing room.

"Peirce!" the friendly endearment 'Hawkeye' had been readily exchange for the shouted, in disbelief, surrname.

"Last time I checked," Hawkeye said, and tweeked his bright, bulbous, nose.

It squeaked. The nose squeaked.

"Peirce, I most certainly did not invite you to my wedding to ruin it," Charles said. He pinched the bridge of his nose in despair.

"I'll take it off before the ceremony actually starts," he said, "but don't make me get rid of the flower."

He slid his hand into his pocket where there was a bulb full of water and when he squeezed it a bit of water shot from the gaudy plastic flower clipped onto the lapel of his tux.

Charles groaned.

"Whyyy," he growled in desperation.

"The way I see it, Charles, this wedding is a joke. So I dressed the part," he said.

Charles shoulders slumped a bit at that and he went quiet. It was clear that Hawkeye had hit a nerve. Charles ran a hand over his balding head and turned away from Hawkeye to pace a bit.

"I must marry her, Hawkeye," Charles said, "it's... what's best for both of our families--it's what's best for me, for my career, for my social life, for the Winchester lineage," he said.

"Maybe for some of those things, but not for you," Hawkeye said.

"And you've deduced this from a few plaintive letters I've penned to you while I've been sloshed?" Charles asked in outrage, his voice rising.

"Charles, the only woman you ever seemed interested in when we were in Korea was Hot Lips, and everyone was interested in Hot Lips," Hawkeye began, "other than that it was all about your music, your hooch, your sisters' recordings. There were times you seemed to be actually afraid by a woman showing interest in you."

Charles huffed.

"How absurd, Peirce. What are you implying?"

"I don't know, Charles. What should I be implying? You never once had a good thing to say in your letters about Priscilla--and I don't mean 'her family and my family are both hoity-toity important bigwigs so we must marry'. You've never said anything good about her that you truly feel. Come on then, right now... tell me why you're marrying this woman. Not why Charles Emerson Winchester III is marrying this woman... but why you are marrying her."

Charles stood there for several moments looking wounded, and lost, his mouth half opened before finally he gave the only answer he could.

"I--I--don't know," he choked out, and sank down into a folding chair and held his forehead in his hand, "I just have to. That's it."

Charles' voice was becoming thick with emotion. There were very few times that Hawkeye had seen Charles actually show such emotion. When he did Hawkeye knew it was serious. He pulled up chair, and took his clown nose off, and sat it aside.

"What do you want, Charles? And if it's not this... then don't do it. You spent what seemed like a hundered years in hell over there--by god haven't you given enough? You can't do this, Charles. You'll just make yourself, and Priscilla, miserable."

"I'm already miserable!" Charles cried.

"Come on, Charles... call it off then. There'll be other women--"

"They'll all be the same, Peirce, don't you see?" Charles heaved a sigh that seemed to come up from his toes and weight as much as the world, "you're right. Margaret was the only woman I ever card about, very briefly, she was... she's quite an impressive woman. She's the only woman I've ever been remotely attracted to. She was some sort of strange anomoly. I... I feel nothing for women. Nothing."

"You feel nothing for Priscilla?"

Charles shook his head.

"I'm terrified of going to bed with her. What if I can't preform? We'll be expected to produce and heir and we've got to be able to..." Charles made a very vague gesture.

"Right, I'm a doctor, I know how that works. When two people love each other, they kiss, and then the stork brings a ba... a ba... a little Winchester," Hawkeye said, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.

"If there was a stork involved I would be grateful," Charles said, "I feel sick just thinking about what I'll be expected to do with her. It's going to be absolutely miserable."

"And then there's that other little problem where... you know... you don't love her," Hawkeye added.

"Yes, there's that," Charles said, slouching down further in his chair. He was completely miserable, "what do you suggest I do, Pierce? You know nothing of this type of familial duty. What advice could you possibly give to me?"

"Charles, you're a Bostonian. Throw the tea into the harbor! Rebel!"

Charles shook his head.

"I need this marriage."

Hawkeye could tell that he wasn't going to get anywhere with Charles, so he left the groom to his moaning, and cold sweating, and Hawk reluctantly took his seat in the sanctuary.

The church was just as gorgeous and impressive on the inside as the outside. There were rows and rows of hand carved cherry wood pews, and every one was draped on each end with white silk. There were beautiful flower arrangements set up all around the church, white and green sprays of flowers in gold vases.

The people who were milling about were dressed to the nines, noses in the air, putting Hawkeye's slouched posture and outdated tux to shame. He'd even combed a bit of pomeade through his hair to appear a bit cleaned up, but was regretting it, as the smell of it seemed to be stronger than he'd remembered.

The ceilings above above Hawkeye and the other guests were high and vaulted, and each wall of the sanctuary was inlade with massive and stunning stain glass windows. The light flitered in through the colored glasswork and left watercolor markings on the white drapes and flowers.

The walls were painted a simple gray, results of a recent renovation done just a few years ago, which covered walls that had been designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany in the early 1900's, painted purple and decorated with ornate silver designs to look like mother of pearl inlay.

Even the organ was impressive--the pipes rising to the left and to the right of the chancel, and at the back of the rear balcony above the entrance to the sanctuary. All in all the organ boasted 115 ranks and 7,625 pipes, and today they would play the traditional Wedding March.

Wedding Dirge is more like it, Hawkeye thought, squirming a bit in his seat as he waited. He hated to see this wedding happen, this loveless, farse of a union, even to Charles.

He leaned forward and tugged a red hymnal out of the back pew pocket in front of him. The motion made a slight whispering sound as the books cover slid against wood. He thumbed through it purely of boredom.

The songs on the pages that flipped by made him smile though. Hawkeye wasn't a religious man, but his mother had taken him to church with her when he'd been a boy, and though he had always found it completely impossible to sit still through an entire sermon, he had always liked the singing.

His mother had had a sweet, cherbuic, voice, and hearing hers rise in songs that gave her hope, and joy, had comforted him.

Soon the Reverend Frederick M. Meek took his place behind the podium at the front of the sanctuary which signalled the ceremony would soon begin. People settled into their seats. Men removed their hats respectfully, and several women drew hankies from their pocketbooks to prepare for tears.

Charles waited at the front and the way he tried to smile was painful. Hawkeye thought he was painfully pale, and was seriously hoping that the man wouldn't faint dead away.

He had to give credit that Priscilla made a beautiful bride; but Hawkeye still didn't like her. Her face and body were all sharp planes which made her look like the dangerous blade of a knife. How would Charles handle a woman like that?

Hawkeye cringed through the 'I do's'. Charles managed not to pass out. The wedding was soon over.

As quickly as Charles could get away from the crowd, the congrats, and the handshaking, he dragged Peirce aside to the bathroom, locked the door, and fell onto his knees before the toilet to throw up.

"Congrats," Hawkeye said, leaning in the doorframe and crossing his arms over his chest.

"Peirce... oooh... shut up," Charles moaned.

-x-

The reception was at the Winchester manor on Beacon Hill, a mere fifteen minutes or so from the church.

Hawkeye had to admit that he could see why Charles loved his home town. It was a beautiful, historic, city, and they drove past the Common Gardens and parks, which were gorgeous and sprawling, to get to where Charles' lived.

His home was incredible, like nothing Hawkeye had ever seen before. It was certain a far cry from the cozy cottage style home that Hawkeye had grown up in.

The lawns were neatly manicured, bursting with beautiful bushes and flowers, and the back patio and gardens were set up for the after party. There was a dock behind the gardens that overlooked the Hudson, and for a moment Hawkeye was sure he had stepped into a version of The Great Gatsby that had taken place in the 1950's. Surely he would look out over the river as the sun began to hang low in the sky, and see that strange, green, glow that Gatsby had seen.

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

There was no green light as the evening wore on, but that quote seemed to carry more and more weight, as Charles and Hawkeye stole away into the garden to get away from the party.

Both men carried a flute of champagne in one hand. Both men wished for something stronger.

"It's not rotgut, and I kind of wish I had some of that old rotgut right now," Hawkeye said.

"So do I," Charles said, an admission that was completely out of character for him, but the tiredness in his eyes, the lines around his mouth, the slump to his strong, wide, shoulders, made it clear that he was not joking about such a thing.

"So what are you planning to do, get through this marriage by pickling your liver?" Hawkeye asked.

"Exactly the way you got through Korea," Charles pointed out.

"You've been hitched for less than a day, and you're already compairing your marriage to a war."

Charles laughed mirthlessly.

"To matrimony, to bliss," Charles said, raising his glass to toast Hawkeye.

"Oh, no. No, no, no," Hawkeye shook his head admantly, "not for me, buddy. I'm never getting married. Women want to get married, then they want to have chickens. No way," he said.

Charles winced at that reference.

The two men fell into silence as their footfalls gently hit the stones in the pathways that curved and wound through the gardens.

"Does Emma know that you don't wish to marry, or have 'chickens'?" Charles asked at last.

Hawkeye winced.

"We... haven't really talked about it. She's too busy raising her grades to raise kids," he said.

"But she's graduate with that medical degree one day," Charles prodded.

"And after that we've talked about opening our own clinic together. She'll have all the family practice she can get--then leave it at the office," Hawkeye said.

He tipped his flute of champagne to his lips and downed it all in one go.

Charles was shaking his head.

"You're clinging just as hard to Emma as I am to Priscilla," Charles said, "normalcy, Hawkeye. We thought we'd have it back as soon as our feet hit American soil. That easily! We could just reach out and grab it..." Charles squeezed his fist around air, and stared at it for a moment, then slowly uncurled it.

"Look, Charles," Hawkeye said, pointing to Charles' open palm, "there's nothing in your hand."

-x-


	4. That's All Right

Hawkeye stayed a few more days in Boston. Some of those days he spent wandering around on his own, just seeing what there was to discover. It was a historical town so it wasn't hard to find interesting places and things to do.

He met Charles for lunch twice. Nothing special, just grabbing a bite and a conversation on Charles' lunch break. On those days they were all medical conversations. Charles had given Hawkeye a magazine in which he had just had an artcile published regarding a delicate surgery on the heart. For Hawkeye's last night in Boston, Charles took him to dinner at a restaurant that was far too stuck-up for Hawkeye's liking, though he acknowledged the fact that this was Charles wanting to 'treat' him.

Hawkeye supposed he should pay a visit to Emma before left for home, so after dinner, he walked towards the university. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and watched his breath puff out in cold little clouds upon the brisk air.

 

The university campus came into view. The beautiful old street lamps cast glowing circles onto the ground which was already beginning to glitter with a layer of evening frost that crunched under Hawkeye's boots as he hurried across the open space.

 

He made it to the girls dorm building and stepped inside. A group of girls were studying in the lobby and a few of them smiled at him, and he winked flirtatiously in return.

 

In another corner one girl was helping another do her hair up in curlers for the night.

 

The lobby was sectioned off by a wide staircase in the center and Hawkeye took the steps two at a time up to the second floor where Emma's room was. He knocked and she greeted him with a shocked expression and a happy little squeak. Emma threw her arms around Hawkeye's neck and hugged him, pulling him into the room with her.

 

She let go of him long enough to shut the door, and then they shared a long kiss.

 

"Gee, Hawkeye, what a surprise!" she said breathlessly, and scurried over to her bed to begin to clear off the books and clutter.

 

Hawkeye stuffed his hands into his pockets and leaned in to watch her fuss.

 

"That's just me. Full of surprises," he said, "though some people might substitute a different 's' word," he said.

 

He picked up one of her records, a vinyl 45 in a sleeve. Carefully he slid the sleek black record out and glanced at the yellow label with the word 'Sun' proclaiming the name of the record company in large, yellow, letters.

 

"Elvis Presley," Hawkeye said, "whose that? Is he any good?" he said, reading 'That's All Right' on the A side of the record, then flipping to the B side which said 'Blue Moon of Kentucky'.

 

"Oh my god, Hawkeye, you haven't heard Elvis? Well this record is his first big hit, and it's just bran new!" Emma gushed, taking the record from him, "he sings like an angel and looks like a dream," she said, carrying the record reverently towards her player.

"I've got Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis, too," she said proudly, as she placed the needle onto the first groove of the Elvis record.

 

The song began with a guitar intro before the 'angel' began to sing in a very distinct, almost warbling, voice.

 

 _Well, that's all right now mama_  
That's all right with you  
That's all right now mama, just anyway you do  
_That's all right, that's all right_  
That's all right now mama, anyway you do

 

 _Well mama, she done told me, papa done told me too_  
"Son, that gal you're foolin' with  
She ain't no good for you"  
_But that's all right now, that's all right_  
That's all right now mama, anyway you do

 

 _I'm leaving town, baby_  
I'm leaving town for sure  
Well, then you won't be bothered with me hanging 'round your door  
Well, that's all right, that's all right  
That's all right now mama, anyway you do

 

At the second verse Hawkeye had gotten into the music and grabbed Emma for a dance. The spun around the room laughing and happy, and when Elvis was done she played Jerry Lee, and they jitterbugged to that. She finished it off with Johnny Cash.

 

"What do you think about Elvis, Hawk?" she asked him, eagerly awaiting his response, as she adjusted her hair which had fallen loose during their vigorous dancing, "my mom just hates rock 'n roll but that's square," she said, "you love it, don't you!" she laughed, "tell me you love it, Hawkeye," she said, hanging off of him.

 

"Oh yeah, he's... not square at all," he said, "neither are you, by the way," he said, wiggling his eyebrows as he looked down at her breasts, "nothing square about you at all."

 

Emma chuckled at that and brought his hand up to cup her breasts.

 

"Nothing square," she said, raking her teeth over her lower lip, "so... how long are you staying?" she asked.

 

"Actually... uh... I'm leaving tomorrow," Hawkeye said.

 

Emma jerked away from him suddenly, and Hawkeye looked down at his empty hand sadly.

 

"What's the matter?" he asked, "I was enjoying the feel of your not-squares," he said.

 

"What's the matter? What's the matter! How long have you been in Boston?" she shouted, "and you're just stopping by as an afterthought before you go home again?"

 

"I came in for a friends wedding. Charles Emerson Winchester III, you know, the sweaty bald doctor we heard at that lecture."

 

"I know who he his. Why didn't you ask me to his wedding as your date? We could have gone together. We could have spent time together, and he'd be a great connection for me to make," she said, "but you only thought of yourself, didn't you?" she said, stalking towards the record player.

 

"Emma, come on, I just... get a little... strange around Charles sometimes. We were in the war together, and I don't really like to be reminded of that hell," he snapped.

 

"And yet here you are because you had to go to his wedding," she said, "and your girlfriend's here and you don't even bother to say you've shown up," she said, ripping the record off of the player and causing a loud 'zzzzp!' sound as the needle scraped across the vinyl.

 

She threw it onto the floor in frustration. Had it been the older shellac style record it would have busted like glass, but the vinyl didn't do much but just sit there staring up at her.

 

Hawkeye suddenly imagined Charles flinging his once beloved records into the wall, or onto the ground, and stomping them to bits. He somehow felt guilty for having enjoyed Emma's records, when Charles, who had been just as in love with music as he was with medicine, could no longer enjoy such a thing.

He found himself imagining what Charles would say if he listened to Cash, or Lewis, or Presley. The little imagined snippets were bittesweet, as the Charles in his head was very less than impressed with these 'rock 'n rollers' and was very vocal and verbacous in his dressing down of them. But Charles wouldn't say a word about them in real life, because Charles didn't listen to music any longer.

"What are you doing?" Emma sniffled, and wiped her nose with her fingers, "why are you just standing there and staring at the wall? What's wrong with you?"

Hawkeye shook his head to bring himself out of his thoughts.

"Too much, I guess," he said, "I'm sorry I came to visit. You should really focus on your studies, not your mentally scrambled boyfriend," he said, and headed for the door.

Emma did not stop him, she just cried as she watched him go.

-x-

That night Hawkeye could hardly sleep. He thrashed in his bed and he dreamed he was drowning in a sea of blood, organs, and body parts. He tried to swim but all he could do was to barely keep his head above the sea of gore.

Someone save me! Hawkeye shouted into the black sky above him.

All around him were the shrill cries of babies protesting and yelling at the top of their angry little lungs. Behind them was the sound of some of Charles' favorite pieces that he'd played on his radio in the Swamp, but the sound of the music was distorted, as though the speed on the record player had been change to slow. The notes and sounds were drawn out into long, eerie, noises.

Again and again he shouted at the blank, black, sky and begged for someone to pull him out before he drowned.

Suddenly the sound of chopper blades cut through his screams.

No, no more, no more!

The chopper dipped down as it circled and Hawkeye could see Charles in one of the side pods. A rope was lowered and Hawkeye grabbed it with his bloodsoaked hands and climbed up. The pilot made him lay down in the other empty side pod. Hawkeye turned his head to look down one last time at the hellish sea below them, and he saw that white chicken eggs shining like tiny skulls, and white piano keys winking like peeled finger bones, had floated to the surface of the blood-and-gore ocean.

They spelled out the word 'Goodbye'.

Hawkeye woke with a scream tangled in his throat. His blanket was tangled in impossible knots, so was his stomach for that matter, and he and his pajamas were swimming with cold sweat.

He had been hoping to get some sleep before his early morning flight back to Maine, but those plans looked to be canceled. He dragged himself to the tiny bathroom in his hotel room and stepped under the shower. His heart lurched in his chest when he fiddled several times with the hot water tap before realizing that there simply wasn't any hot water.

The cold shower, as did so many things, reminded him of Korea. How many times had he ran out of the shower with a towel around his waist to make it OR, get into his whites, and scrub up while he still had shampoo in his hair? Far too many times, that was for certain.

The beat of the water against the mildewy tiles, and the bottom of the tub, morphed and shifted into the sound of chopper blades. Hawkeye banged his hands against his ears several times, then jammed his fingers into the canals, as if trying to clear them of the phantom noise would really work.

At last he just gave up and pressed his forehead to the tiles, and watched the water pool around his feet, and swirl down the drain.

The first thing Hawkeye did when he got back to Crabbeapple Cove was to go to the post office and check his P.O. box. The Pierces' lived near the edge of the city limits, and nobody out there had their mail delivered. Hawkeye made a habit of checking the box for letters every day, even if he wasn't going into the office, and even if it was impractical to drive into town just to do that one thing. He knew Charles wouldn't have written him already, they'd only parted, but the checking was as much a habit as Hawkeye's need to sniff each bite of food before eating it. Sidney had noticed it when Hawkeye was under his care. He had said that the thing Hawkeye did with his food was a sign of something called obsessive-compulsive neuroses. With the trauma Hawkeye was experiencing it was only normal, Sidney said, that he would develop a neuroses. Sidney had even said that he may develop others, even after he was home, and Hawkeye found that to be true. He had developed several more since being home.

Checking the letter box was just one of them.

When Charles first started writing him he would check every day first thing in the morning. Then he'd taken to checking on his lunch break as well, and then again when he was done at the office for the day.

Now he found the need to check for correspondence distracting him during the day, anxiety filling him that couldn't just abandon his patient in the middle of an exam to run down to the post office and see if there was a letter. And why should he be anxious? Why should it bother him? If a letter was there at 1:00pm it would still be there waiting at 5:00pm when Hawkeye closed the practice. But he simply _needed_ to check the box. The truth was that it wasn't logical.

Most of his obsessive-compulsive behavior he could hide pretty well from his father, his receptionist, and his patients.

Each morning when he came to work he began by going to each exam room and dumping out the jar of tongue depressors and counting each one. There had to be a certain number, and if there was not, he would add more until there were. After that had been done he needed to revisit each room and do the same thing for the cotton swabs, the boxes of band-aids, and the boxes of rubber gloves.

If he ran out of materials and couldn't replace them, he would lock that exam room, and refuse to use it until he could visit the drug store to buy another box of swabs, or band-aids, or gloves.

His newest obsessive-compulsive neuroses was to count each step when he was walking to or from the post office. By now he knew exactly how many steps were from the diner to the post office, the bakery to the post office, or his workplace to the doctors office. Even though he knew the numbers in his head he still had to count each step aloud.

One day when he'd been walking from work to the post office, Peggy Lou, a regular waitress at the diner, had stopped him. She was outside on her smoke break leaning against the brick face of the building. She kept her hair bleached blond and always wore it in a short bouffant and kept her face done with thick winged eyeliner, a smear of rouge across her cheekbones, and red lips. Hawkeye had always thought she looked like a pinup girl dressed like that, though the skirt of her blue waitresses uniform wasn't quite short enough to be that risque.

She had blown a stream of smoke through her crimson lips and laughed.

"We're gonna start calling you Count Hawkeye," she had said, pausing to tap the ash from her cigarette, careful not to drop them on her scuffed brown saddle shoes, "then everyone's gonna think you're a vampire. Guess you could bite my neck any time you like."

She had tilted her head then, and pushed down the rounded collar of her dress to show him a good view of her neck.

The old Hawkeye would have been flirting instantaneously, and maybe even taking her into the alley to kiss that pretty neck for the remainder of her break. But instead he had gotten an anxiety attack because she had interrupted his counting. He had made a fool of himself yelling at her, and he had frightened her.

Now when Hawkeye went to the diner, if Peggy Lou was working, she would ask one of the other girls to wait on him.

That was just a small example of the people he was pushing away due to the problems the war had left him with. Emma was becoming another. He wasn't sure she would want to see him again, but the more he considered it as he let the cold water rush over his tired body, the more he realized that he didn't really want to see her anymore either. They had their moments, like the dancing in her dorm room, when he could truly let go and have some fun like he had used to. But overall they just didn't click together anymore.

As time passed Hawkeye continued to write to Charles, and Charles to respond, and now and then Emma would write. They hadn't officially broken up, but he could never expect what sort of letter to get from her--hot or cold--and as time went on he found that he had stopped caring.

The 'Dear John' letter that he wrote to her was as kind as could manage. He didn't want to hurt her, he just wanted to end it.

Around that time Charles had suggested in one of his letters that they could communicate by phone, quicker and more personal than letters. Hawkeye enjoyed the letters and didn't want to give them up. After promising that he wouldn't stop writing to Hawkeye, Hawkeye sent his phone number in his next letter to Charles.

The phone calls soon became regular, to be expected once a week, Friday evenings.

Hawkeye became like a teenage girl sitting expectantly by the telephone near the time he knew that Charles would ring.

Since it was the end of the week Charles usually sounded tired. Hawkeye could tell if he'd been drinking, and sometimes they'd drink together as they chatted, once becoming so inebriated that Hawkeye had dropped the phone, picked it back up, and began shouting into it while holding it upside down.

It wouldn't have mattered anyway, because Charles had fallen asleep at that point, passed out on a brocade settee which was far too small to comfortably accommodate his generous frame.

Soon enough an entire year had passed since Charles and Priscilla had been wed.

Charles couldn't speak as openly about how miserable he was in his marriage when he and Hawkeye spoke over the phone. Sometimes the alcohol loosened his tongue enough to get him going. But those dismal outpourings were usually saved for the letters.

_Dear Hawkeye,_

_I am utterly miserable in this farse of a marriage. I overwork myself continuously simply to have reason to stay in my office rather than in my own home. I consumed my time with writing artciles or letters to you when I must endure these walls. The cognac helps but I must put that aside after the realization that I spent Friday, Saturday, and Sunday continuously drunk and was so sick on Monday that I am ashamed to say, I could not go to work. I never drank that heavily in Korea._

_A Winchester is strength, and endurance. We bear up under the most disheartening circumstances and trudge onwards with determination to best and overcome the demon which hangs off our necks, threatening to drag us down and out. But if there is such a thing as a breaking point for a Winchester, I feel I am hovering ever nearer to that perilous peak._

_I need time away._

_I have considered visiting Maine. I hear the blueberries are in season, and I do so love to savor a homemade blueberry pie._

_-Charles_

Hawkeye's lips had turned up at the corners when reading that last bit about the blueberries. It was November, blueberry season had ended months ago, and with as cold as the weather was, Charles was sure to know that. Hawkeye recognized it for what it was--it was just Charles' way of saying that he would like to see him, but covering it with some excuse that both of them knew to be ridiculous.

Hawkeye called Charles on the phone to tell him he would be glad to have his company, and that he could even stay with the Pierces, unless that wasn't posh enough for him.

Hawkeye busied himself with getting the extra room ready for Charles. His father mused that instead of his son moving out on his own again, he was imply bringing a third person into the house, and that soon it would be too crowded. Of course Charles wasn't coming there to live, he just needed a holiday.

As for Hawkeye he'd been on his own before the war. He'd had himself a nice apartment and could have afforded a house, but being a bachelor who liked to play, he had seen no reason to settle down into a family home. When he'd come home from Korea his apartment of course had been long ago rented to a new tenant, so he'd moved back in with his father. The 'temporary' arrangement appeared to be becoming long-term. Hawkeye told himself and his father it was due to his father aging, and his health, though the elder Pierce had been in tip top shape since that surgery he'd had while Hawk had been in Korea. The same surgery, in fact, that had caused Hawkeye and Charles to bond for the first time.

The truth was that Hawkeye didn't want to be alone with his own mind. It was hard enough laying awake at night without anyone in the room. What he wouldn't give to hear the scratch of of the needle on Charles' record because he'd fallen asleep with it on the player, or the way B.J. mumbled to Peg and Erin in his sleep, or Trap's snoring. Just something--even the chirping bugs--to distract him from the war in his head.

But at least he knew that his father was in the other room, and sometimes when he couldn't sleep he could tiptoe to his fathers' room like a child, crack the door open, and sit down on the floor in the hallway outside and just listen to the sounds of his father sleeping.

If he was on his own Hawkeye feared he would go mad.

Hawkeye was excitable as he waited at the terminal for Charles to disembark. As soon as he saw his friend, however, he was immediately concerned. Charles looked exhausted, and not just from a rough flight.

His clothing looked baggy on him, his usual round face was thin, his hair was bushy and untidy. Not once since Hawkeye had seen Charles after the war had his hair been bushy the way it had gotten in Korea, and it had always been combed, done with the slightest bit of hair cream. Even in Korea, though Charles' hadn't been able to get his hair trimmed as often as he would have preferred, he had always been anal about keeping it combed, and neat.

"Here, let me help you with those bags," Hawkeye said, grabbing Charles' luggage, "you look like you've got your work cut out for you carrying the ones under your eyes."

"Very funny, Hawkeye," Charles said tiredly.

"It's not funny at all. You look terrible. You look like something the cat dragged in... and then shat on."

"Thank you, Hawkeye, your boorish commentary on my appearance is not well received and I would prefer it to cease," Charles said stiffly.

"And I would prefer it to be blueberry season so I could give you a slice of that pie you talked about. Maybe the whole pie--you look like you need it," he said.

"Well, I can't argue there," Charles said, "I suppose it's the stress of the marriage getting to me, unless you're flying to Boston to switch out my trousers again," he said, leading them both to recall the time Hawkeye and Beej had played a series of jokes on Charles where they had switched his pants out to make him think he had lost or gained weight.

They'd ended that little laugh-fest by switching his pants out to be shorter, thus revealing their part in the whole scheme, as Charles knew that he could not possibly be growing any taller at his age.

Hawkeye drove them home in his fathers' car, and chattered the entire way, even after Charles fell asleep with his head resting against the window.

When they arrived Hawkeye teased him about the red mark on his face from sleeping against the window, then hauled his bag inside.

"This is the grand estate of the Pierce family, known for their long line of exquisite medical practitioners, and mediocre fishermen. The Pierce's can help you if you've caught a cold, but if you need to catch your dinner, you're better off asking the town veterinarian. Right this way to your room, sir," Hawkeye said, putting on a funny hoity-toity voice, and speaking through his nose.

He lifted Charles' bags and lead him to the guest room. It was quite small and contained only a single bed, a dresser, and an old singer sewing machine sitting in one corner and gathering dust. It had belonged to Hawkeye's mother, and no one had touched it since she'd passed away, but the machine had been such a part of her that neither Hawkeye nor his father could bear to part with it.

"'Grand' indeed," Charles said, eying the tiny space with unease.

This was hardly a bedroom as far as. It was more like a closet. But the bed looked comfortable, and made up with care, piled with extra blankets and pillows. Everything but the old sewing machine had been dusted, and Charles noted with some surprise that there was even a bottle of cognac sitting atop the dresser. His sour expression eased into one of gentle appreciation, and then he turned to Hawkeye with respect and appreciation in his eyes. The man had gone the extra mile to put a special touch here just for him.

"Thank you, Hawkeye, I'm sure it will be... sufficient," he said.

He took his suitcases from Hawkeye, lifted them onto the bed, and opened them to begin unpacking and filling the empty drawers in the dresser.

Hawkeye leaned against the door frame like a crooked, lanky, tree, and watched Charles meticulously unpack his things and settle them in.

"I'm glad you're staying, you know," Hawkeye said, "you really look like you could use some time. I meant it when I said you look like hell. I've /seen/ you in hell, so I should know. Your weight fluctuated in Korea, but you never got this thin."

"I wouldn't call it 'thin'," Charles said, "I'm incapable of being 'thin', it's the way us Winchesters are built--sturdy, and hearty," he said.

"You look thin for you," Hawkeye corrected, "you don't look healthy that way. Me? I'm meant to be a beanpole. You're more like... a... a..."

"A watermelon?" Charles offered, with a small chuckle.

"I was gonna say a Clydesdale," Hawkeye said, giving a shrug.

"Only you would make a comparison between a vegetable and a horse," Charles said.

Both men went quiet for a moment as Charles continued to unpack, unaware that the mentioning of 'horse' had brought to mind thoughts of Colonel Potter to both of their heads. Charles was considering how much the orphans must be enjoying Sophie, while Hawkeye was considering how much Mildred must be enjoying having her Mr. Potter back home.

"That's good enough," Hawkeye said after growing impatient. He shut the drawer, took the button up that Charles was fussing with, and laid it aside, "let's go into town. I'll show you around. That'll take maybe five minutes," he joked, "we'll go to the diner. I'm starving, and I want you to try the clam chowder."

Charles opened his mouth to say something but Hawkeye held his hands up.

"Now, I know you're going to say something about Boston, and the best clam chowder, and how some greasy spoon in a one-horse town couldn't possibly compare, but you're wrong. They use my mother's clam chowder recipe, and before it was hers it was my grand mothers, and before she had it, my great-grandmother did, and so and so on. You get the picture. There's nothing better on a cold fall day that a hot bowl of chowder... except maybe a nice warm body," Hawkeye winked.

He met Charles' at the front door where he pulled his stocking cap down over his ears, then wound a nice thick scarf around his neck and chin, and they set off for 'the big city', the hub of excitement that was Crabbleapple Coves' town square.

Hawkeye parked and walked Charles past his office, which was complete with 'B. Franklin Pierce M.D.' in the window.

"Hi, Peggy Lou," Hawkeye waved as he and Charles took a seat.

The waitress looked apprehensive, but she must have been curious enough about Hawkeye's guest, because she came over to the table for the first time in months. She handed them each a menu.

"Hi, cutie," she smiled at Charles, "I'll be your waitress today."

"I'll be married today," Charles said, flashing his wedding band.

Peggy Lou pouted.

"What a shame. You've got that swell accent and everything. Real la-di-da," she said, placing a hand on her hip, "your gal got herself a Daddy Warbucks, didn't she?"

Charles' lip curled at the question.

"Priscilla did not need to weed me for my wealth, her family is one of the most prestigious old-money lines in Boston," Charles said, tilting his chin up, and laying the snobbery on thickly, "as is my family, the Winchesters. Now, I believe you have an order to take? I don't give tips for smalltalk," he said.

"Don't mind him," Charles said, "he's not always that bristly, only on days that end in 'y'," he said.

Peggy Lou pouted at both of them, took down their orders, and disappeared to tend her other tables.

"If this 'Peggy Lou' is a prime example of hospitality in the Land of Lobster, it leaves much to be desired," Charles said.

"Just wait 'til you taste the chowder," Hawkeye assured him with a smirk and a nod, "enduring her will be well worth it."

Hawkeye was glad to see that he was right about that. Once their steaming bowls of chowder were placed before them, and Charles had a bite, he moaned in pleasure.

"See, see, told ya," Hawkeye said, grabbing a handful of oyster crackers, and dropping them into his soup. He brought a spoonful of the thick chowder to his nose and sniffed it before eating, just as he always did.

"It's _divine_ , Hawkeye," Charles admitted, "not even to be sullied with those delicious little crackers that I do usually enjoy," he said, pushing the bowl of oyster crackers towards Hawkeye to indicate that he could have as many of them as he wished, Charles didn't want them, "our nanny made a wonderful chowder, but... even that could not compare to this exquisite example."

"I guess it makes a difference when it's made by a mothers' hands," Hawkeye said.

"Yes, I... suppose it must," Charles said.

A sad expression passed over both of their faces briefly; Charles as he thought about how it must have been to have had a mother who would have taken the time to prepare a family meal on her own, who would have been so nurturing as Hawkeye's mother must have, and Hawkeye as he thought about how much he missed her.

"Hawkeye, before I leave this... quaint little corner of the world... I must pay my respects to your mother for this," he said, very seriously, as he placed one hand against the side of the warm bowl, and then continued to eat.

After a few more bites Charles paused and seemed to be watching Hawkeye and thinking about something carefully.

"Alright, I expect other people to stare at me for sniffing my food, but you should be used to it," Hawkeye said, joking of course as he knew that mustn't be the reason for Charles' contemplative gaze.

"If it's not too... hard on you... I was simply wondering if you might tell me about her," Charles said, "your mother."

Hawkeye smiled slowly.

"She would have loved you," Hawkeye said immediately, "any friend of mine was a son or a daughter to her," he said, "god, she was wonderful. Last time I saw Emma, she called that guy Elvis an angel. No, no. If there was ever an angel on earth, it was my mom," Hawkeye said.

" 'Mom'," Charles said, as though trying the word on for size.

Hawkeye recalled the conversation they'd had in Korea about Charles 'father' and Hawkeye's 'Dad'. Apparently the situation had been similar with Charles' mother as well.

"My mother loved us, but she was distant," Charles said, "we had nannies. They were wonderful to us, really," he said, "but none of them were... _mom._ "

Hawkeye still found it a bit surprising whenever Charles opened up like this to him. Charles just wasn't the 'opening up' type. But it really did touch Hawkeye that Charles would do this for him, that he felt comfortable enough, safe enough to reveal a vulnerability.

"You can meet her when we get home," Hawkeye said.

After finishing their meal, which Charles insisted upon paying for and tipping generously, (with his highest compliments to the chef), they headed back to Hawkeye's home. Hawkeye pulled out the family albums and they sat on the couch for hours looking through the black and white photos.

Charles was full of questions, inviting stories, almost as though he was hungry for that feeling of 'family' and was lapping it up and feeling that sort of warmth vicariously through Hawkeye's words and family photos.

Some of the stories had them sad, and somber, while others found the men laughing so hard they would cry.

"You were a terribly ugly child, Hawkeye," Charles teased him as they both laughed.

"Oh yeah? And what did you look like as a kid?" Hawkeye countered, "come on buddy, spill!"

Charles continued to laugh.

"All of our photos are proper portraits in stuffy clothing, Hawkeye, save the few father took of me when we went hunting. I was a very handsome child, I assure you."

"What happened? You hit puberty and ugly all at the same time?"

They continued to laugh and badger one another until they were wiping tears from their eyes. While Hawkeye was putting the photo albums away back into the bookcase, Charles realized that he hadn't laughed like that since he'd been home from Korea.

Leave it to Hawkeye to have reminded him how to.


	5. Ain't That A Shame

Charles had come into town on October 30th. The next day, of course, was Halloween. Naturally Hawkeye had taken Charles into town the morning of Halloween to visit the candy counter in the back of the drugstore where they bought generous amounts of sweets to hand out that night to the children.

They treated themselves to drinks at the soda fountain, Hawkeye a rootbeer float, and Charles a chocolate soda. They sat at the bar and enjoyed them as the spoke with the druggist who chatted them up as he mixed liquids and poured them into bottles, or filled them with pills, ready to be picked up by sniffling customers. The flu was going around Crabapple Cove, he told them.

"Oh, so that's what all those patients have been coming in with," Hawkeye said, "I couldn't figure it out."

After their sodas were nothing more than hopefull sucking sounds of straws against empty glasses, they left the drugstore to stroll down main street and see what else was there to take in. Charles had some sort of sarcastic, snobby, comment come out of his mouth on a regular basis, but Hawkeye could tell that Charles was really enjoying himself despite his haughty charade.

They took a walk through the town park where the sprawling lawns were covered with beds of fiery red and orange leaves, the trees bare with black arms stark against the cold white sky. Brown ducks and pretty mallards with deep green stripes down their heads swam serenely in the pond along with the peppering of floating fall leaves.

The park was decked out for a fall festival. Bright red apples were for sale, heaping out of baskets, and a variety of colorful, bumpy squash, along with loads of pumpkins that were heaped up into the beds of trucks. Tailgates were lowered and kids in mittens and jackets were climbing over the heaps of pumpkins, laughing and giggling, as they searched for the perfect ones.

There was a table for carving pumpkins, a trough set up for apple bobbing, and a stand selling fall treats like hot cider and apple dumplings with hand churned vanilla ice cream on top.

Hawkeye and Charles each bought a cider and sat down on a bench to watch the people. Hawkeye noticed that Charles seemed specifically taken with the children who were carving pumpkins.

"Ever done that, Charles?" Hawkeye asked, as he lifted his cup of hot cider to his face, sniffed it, and let the warm steam tickle his skin.

"Hm? Oh--have I ever carved a pumpkin? No, not at all," Charles said, "on Halloween, mother and father often hosted a harvest dinner, or a masquerade ball."

"Masquerade ball? Didn't people stop doing those things hundreds of years ago?" Hawkeye asked, "didn't you ever get to do kid things?"

"Well... I... might have sneaked out of the house one year with a group of my boarding school friends, and egged the headmasters house," Charles chuckled.

"Scandalous," Hawkeye grinned over the top of his cup, "but no pumpkins?"

"No pumpkins," Charles confirmed.

Hawkeye sat his cup down on the bench, got up, and trotted over to one of the pickups where the children were playing on the pumpkin piles. After a few moments debated he chose two pumpkins, paid for them, and came back to the bench carrying one under each arm.

"The round one's for you," Hawkeye said, "see the resemblance?"

"Oh yes, that squash has a distinct lack of hair," Charles said, and smiled warmly, his own head covered with a warm hat with flaps over the ears. With the weather growing steadily colder his stylish fedora had gone into hiding for something more practical.

After arriving home Hawkeye began to spread old newspaper onto the front porch while Charles watched curiously from the doorway.

Moments later both men were seated on the porch with their pumpkins sat on the newspapers, knives in hand.

"First you cut the top off," Hawkeye said, "also a fun way to start a date off," Hawkeye smirked.

"As a surgeon I think I can handle cutting into a plant, Hawkeye," Charles said, slicing into the pumpkin and circling the knife around until the top could be removed.

"Then dig all the guts out," Hawkeye said, "a very bad way to start off a date."

Charles was rather quiet as they scooped large flat seeds and slimy, stringy, globs of pulp out of their pumpkins.

"Now comes the real fun," Hawkeye said once that was done, "we get to carve the faces. I like to make mine silly instead of scary. Kids have enough scary things coming for them once they're grown up without a pumpkin to give them nightmares," he said.

"Indeed," Charles said, "marriage, for one," he snorted.

"And chickens," Hawkeye added.

Charles groaned.

"Please, don't mention those."

"Wait a minute," Hawkeye said, "I thought I was the one who had a problem with chickens?"

Charles attempted to avoid the topic by going back to carving his pumpkin, focusing meticulously on one eye.

"Are you gonna be a father?" Hawkeye asked, which only drew another snort.

"Hardly," Charles said, "which is precisely the problem," he sighed, "Priscilla wanted to begin trying for children on our wedding night," Charles punctuated that sentence with a very distasteful frown.

"So..." Hawkeye waved his knife in a motion for Charles to continue.

"So..." Charles said slowly, "that's been just about a year ago," he said, "and..."

"No chickens," Hawkeye finished for him.

Charles' shoulders lumped. He looked devastated.

"I... I'm not sure I can," he said, "if you recall... I contracted the mumps in Korea," he said, practically spitting the name.

Hawkeye was looking extremely concerned for his friend now, and sat his knife and pumpkin aside.

"There's one way to find out. You haven't tested yourself yet, have you?" Hawkeye asked, getting to his feet.

The uncomfortable look on Charles' face answered the question.

Hawkeye drove them to town for the second time that day. This time they weren't going to have any fun. The matter at hand was quite serious.

He unlocked the door to his office and showed Charles in. The waiting room was small and cozy and under other circumstances Charles was certain it would have felt quite welcoming. He shoved his hands into his coat pockets as Hawkeye locked the front door behind them, then lead them back to an office.

He handed Charles a specimen jar and pointed him to the bathroom.

Charles returned some time later and reluctantly handed the jar over to Hawkeye, his face and ears bright with embarrassment.

"Look, I'm a man, I've seen plenty of this stuff," Hawkeye said, motioning to the jar.

"Just... get it over with, Pierce," Charles said, closing his eyes.

Hawkeye set up a slide with a smear of Charles' semen on it and placed it under a microscope. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as Hawkeye bent over the counter and kept his eyes pressed to the machine as he used it to look at something so personal to Charles and read it as though a fortune teller reading tea leaves to tell Charles his fate. Except that this was science, and whatever Hawkeye saw under that microscope, it was going to be certain, not a whimsical possibility.

"Hawkeye... Hawkeye... aren't you finished?" Charles asked impatiently, coming up behind him, and almost bumping him out of the way of the microscope.

Hawkeye looked up and there was bad news written on his face.

"Charles... there... aren't many swimmers in there," he said, "the ones that are there are damaged. I'm... I'm really sorry..."

Charles tilted his chin up and put on a stoic expression to try to save face but Hawkeye knew better than that. He knew that Charles saw it as his duty as male heir to continue his family line. The stoic expression stayed for several moments, but then Charles cracked beneath it.

"I'm useless," he said, "and this marriage has been done all for nothing," he groaned, closing his eyes, looking as though his world had been shattered.

"Now wait a minute, you're far from useless, Charles. You're Chief of Thoracic Surgery, you're--you're--a Winchester," Hawkeye insisted.

"I'm a failure as a Winchester," Charles laughed bitterly, "the family name will die with me," he said, "what sort of son!"

He didn't finish that sentence, simply sank down into a chair, and went quiet.

Hawkeye pulled out another chair and after giving Charles a few quiet moments, he spoke again, gently.

"You're a good son, Charles," Hawkeye said, "and you're a good man. It isn't your fault, you know," he said.

"Let's just... go," Charles said, standing to his feet slowly, as though there were heavy weights on his shoulders that he needed to bear up under.

He obviously didn't want to discuss the topic of his childless future any longer.

Once they were home again Charles went straight to the guest room and closed the door. Hawkeye finished carving their pumpkins, cleaned up the mess, and sat candles inside the pumpkins to convert them to smiling jack-o-lanterns that would welcome trick-or-treaters up the steps come evening.

He managed to get Charles out of his room by the time the costumed children were stomping up the steps for treats. Charles did his best to give them all big smiles, and he placed generous handfuls of candy into their open pillowcases and sacks, but his heart was not in it.

After the last of the children had come Hawkeye blew out the candles in the lanterns, and went inside, and made some candied apples in hopes of cheering Charles up with one of them.

Charles remained in a dismal mood for the rest of the evening and went to bed early, and his mood was just as dour the next day.

It didn't get any better as the men sat around the radio that evening, November 1, and listened to the news program.

In Charles home they had an actual television. Charles could have afforded one, but he didn't really like the television, so he kept to the radio for entertainment and information.

According to that evenings news program, President Eisenhower had deployed a Military Assistance Advisory Group to train the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. An icy silence seemed to fill the room at the news, despite the fact that the radio was still playing.

It wasn't as though any American troops had actually been deployed, but Hawkeye and Charles both felt sick at the news, sure that sooner or later if the conflict did not resolve quickly, the U.S. would be involved in another war.

The Korean 'conflict' had only just ended.

Hawkeye rested his elbows on his knees, and dropped his head into his hands, hunched over and silent.

The news program ended and the D.J. announced they'd be spinning Fats Domino's latest hit, and on it came.

_Ain't that a shame,_

_My tears fell like rain._

_Ain' t that a shame,_

_You're the one to blame-_

Charles switched the radio off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been considering making a playlist for this story to post up at the end (which will still be quite awhile I assure you.) Would anyone be interested? That way I know if I should start keeping a list of the songs that I mention in the story/feel that go along with it.
> 
> Thanks for reading :3


	6. By The Sea

__By the beautiful sea, you'll see a girl and a fella,  
By the beautiful sea, you'll see a yellow umbrella,  
That's where we'll spoon on the sand, and then pretty soon, hand in hand,  
We walk through the waves, right up to our chins,  
We dream happy flounders of flapping their fins,  
When you're in love, the seaweed smells just like roses,  
Each breaker we strike is like a velvet settee,  
By evening the moon will be high,  
And stardust will hit me kerplunk in the eye,  
It's peachy when her and me can be by the beautiful, beautiful sea.

-Frank Sinatra

  
  


The holidays passed Charles and Priscilla who continued on throwing parties and dinners and appearing falsely to friends and family as a very happily married couple. 1956 came in on a snow storm, and a fight, and by 1957 Charles had signed divorced papers.

He left his lawyers office and made the short walk to the edge of the Charles River, slid his wedding band off his finger, and chucked it into the moving water.

He considered chucking himself in after it.

After all what did he have left now?

His family would expect him to remarry, to produce an heir that he could not, and he wasn't about to set himself down that fruitless pathway yet again. Honoria, his dearly beloved sister, had moved halfway across the country with her husband, and they now had three children. She was so busy raising her family, and so far away, that Charles hardly heard from her any longer.

His job was fine, it was still the bright and shining pin on his lapel that he had always wished it to be, but he was even beginning to wonder if that was right for him.

Everything he had worked so hard for had been in order to make his family proud, to uphold the name, to be this type of man that his breeding and upbringing expected and dictated. But was he really? That Winchester voice inside of him spoke as it always did, 'of course you are', for what else would he be?

But his life was growing into something that felt pointless, just a position that he could flaunt, and he wasn't even sure what purpose that held any longer.

_Dear Hawkeye,_

_I'm a free man, or at least I am in terms of legality. Today my miserable marriage was officially dissolved. I threw my wedding band into the river to celebrate, and briefly contemplated throwing myself in after it._

_I decided against it because I didn't want to ruin my coat._

_But I have decided I am long overdue for a sabbatical of sorts. I am currently planning a vacation to somewhere warm, and tropical, and I request your company._

_You have been a dear friend to me through these rough years and I would like to thank you properly. Your expenses will be paid on the Winchester tab if you do accept my invitation._

_I'm certain that Crabapple Cove could manage to get along without you for a week or two._

_-Charles_

-x-

When Hawkeye received the letter that Charles and Priscilla were finally over he did a fist pump and 'yippee' right there in the post office. He'd been getting these letters about how miserable Charles was ever since the two had wed. It was long past due for them to be unwed.

Hawkeye tucked the letter into an inside pocket of his doctor's coat. He'd come over to the post office on his lunch break and hadn't bothered to take it off.

As far as his job went, chickenpox was currently all the rage in Crabapple Cove. Even adults were coming in covered in the itchy red dots. There'd even been a couple cases of shingles. If more people would get their vaccinations, Hawkeye explained again, and again, and again, then there wouldn't be an epidemic of the chickenpox sweeping through rural Maine.

He was kind to the children though, and always offered them a safety sucker after smearing calamine lotion all over their itchy dots. The babies he continued to have trouble tolerating, but most days he could do a pretty good job of hiding it. He would have liked to think that his post traumatic stress had improved over the two years he'd been home.

He had even been able to manage to drop a couple of his obsessive rituals, though he had a feeling that sniffing his food would remain a part of his life for the rest of it.

Hawkeye returned to his office after lunch and feeling great about Charles' news. Of course they still spoke over the phone frequently, but neither had wanted to stop writing. There was something nice about receiving the letters, and when there were months between phone calls because Charles was too busy with work, or didn't feel comfortable speaking about things in front of Priscilla, then they had still had their letters to fall back on.

Hawkeye had taken to keep each of Charles' letters in a shoebox beneath his bed.

One of his obsessive routines that he had yet to drop was to take the letters out each night, count them, and make sure they were all in order by date. He couldn't sleep if he forgot the ritual.

Hawkeye was seated on the edge of his bed with the shoebox on his lap, filing through the letters, and adding the newest one with Charles' request that he accompany him on vacation. Hawkeye considered the request. It would be nice to get away to somewhere warm, and he missed Charles' company, so he wasn't sure why the answer wouldn't be 'yes'.

The truth was he had grown very fond of Charles. It was funny to think about where they'd begun, and where they were now, and it was strange to Hawkeye that they'd grown so close. Yet after these years of contact with Charles he felt as close to the man as he ever had to B.J. or Trapper, and he had loved (and still cared for) both of those friends very dearly.

Hawkeye thought of Trapper fondly, recalling up memories of time spent together in Korea, short as it had been. Trapper had gotten to go home long before he had, and while Hawkeye knew that had been great for his friend, the unsaid 'goodbye' still haunted him.

B.J. had never said goodbye either, but at least he had written it out in stones atop the hill where so many choppers hand landed with gifts of wounded and dying. Even that silent goodbye had meant something to Hawkeye, and the image of the stony word growing smaller, and smaller, as his chopper had rose higher and higher, finally disappearing out of sight, was an image that was in his mind often.

What if Charles grew bored of him and simply dropped off the face of the Earth one day? No goodbye. Would Charles do that to him?

With anxiety thumping behind his sternum, Hawkeye began to count his letters again, to look at each one and check the date, methodically making sure they were in order and all accounted for.

He stashed the shoebox back under his bed and lay down staring at the blank ceiling and listening to the silence that filled his head with the thump of chopper blades, the laughter of Trap, the sound of B.J. Ccrying at night because he longed for his wife and child.

 

Hawkeye called Charles' the next evening. He told himself it was just to tell him 'in person' (sort of) that he wanted to take him up on that vacation offer. But really he needed to hear Charles' voice in that distinctive, upper-crust, Bostonian drawl, that drew out the a's in words and did interesting things. The fact that the tone changed when Charles was joking, or being condescending, and the fact that somehow even that condescending tone had become endeared to him... was something that Hawkeye never would have imagined possible.

 

If Hawkeye wasn't mistaken he might think he was developing something a little more than a friendship with Charles Emerson Winchester III. A crush? Maybe. Just maybe. It wouldn't have been the first time he'd been drawn to another man. Overall, Hawkeye was about the ladies, that was obvious, but the deeper and more meaningful relationships he'd had had always been with men. It had never bothered him, actually. The only thing that bothered him was how hard things would become if he actually fell in love with another man one day (and maybe he had come close to that with Trapper, he was almost certain of it).

 

The world was accepting of a handsome man with a pretty lady on his arm, but it wasn't accepting of two men walking hand in hand. Hawkeye didn't like the idea that he'd have to keep such a relationship, if it happened, a secret. When he cared for someone he wanted it to be known. Personally he didn't understand the prejudices against people who enjoyed or preferred the company of the same sex. What business did anyone else have nosing around in Hawkeye's bed anyway? (Unless they'd been invited, then by all means, nose!)

 

The fact that he was thinking about such things told him that he was getting in deeper with Charles than he'd realized. He couldn't say that he was 'falling in love' with him, but he was feeling the beginnings of a deep connection that went beyond friendship.

 

At least he knew that Charles was gay--if the feelings did develop, there wouldn't be that awkward wondering about if the other person was even capable of returning said attraction. Charles was fully capable, if that spark appeared for him.

 

So Hawkeye took Charles up on that offer of a vacation. He wanted to spend more time with him and get to know his friend better.

 

Perhaps he was also desperate to get out of Crabapple Cove, which seemed to be squeezing in on him. Everyone knew him there and his increasing peculiarities and difficulties were not exactly unnoticed in the small town. He liked his job but was beginning to feel like that wasn't enough, but he wasn't sure what else to do. He never liked the idea of moving to a larger city to work in a hospital, but maybe he'd grown used to a more fast paced workplace, doing all that meatball surgery.

 

He decided he would bring that topic up to Charles over the course of their vacation, and bounce ideas off him. Maybe the vacation was really all he needed to get a few of his ducks somewhat straight.

 

-x-

 

It turned out that Charles was taking them to the Bahamas. It was gorgeous on the island they were staying, with the brightest blue-green water Hawkeye had ever lain eyes on. The sky was bright and happy above waving palms, and it was warm, and inviting. Charles and Hawkeye looked every bit the tourists in their Hawaiian shirts and long shorts. Charles wore a panama hat to keep the sun off his balding head, and that was a distinct reminder of Father Mulcahy, who had rarely been seen without his on in Korea.

 

The sun was shining down and warming the sands that Charles and Hawkeye were traipsing over. At the edge of the beach Hawkeye kicked his loafers off and buried his toes in the damp sand and foamy edges of surf. He spread his arms out wide, and closed his eyes, grinning to take in the sun rays.

Charles was carrying a fold out chair under one arm, and an umbrella under the other. He'd attempted to make Hawkeye carry their things, but somehow, very uncharacteristically, Charles had ended up the beast of burden.

He erected the fold out chair in a nice spot, then settled the big umbrella into the sand for shade, and slid into the chair to watch the cerulean waves lap at the white sands.

“Gorgeous,” Charles said, as he withdrew a tube of zinc oxide, and applied a generous amount to his nose and cheeks.

“This beats the pants off Korea!” Hawkeye said, and waded out into the warm waters a bit. He reached down into the water and splashed, laughing, twirling like a child.

Charles watched him with amusement, and perhaps admiration.

Hawkeye squatted and dipped his hands down into the surf again, this time withdrawing handfuls of sand and shells.

He took his Hawaiian shirt off and began to pile shells into it as though it were a bag, and after it was full, he trotted over to Charles like a happy dog returning a stick to its playmate. Hawkeye lay the vividly printed shirt onto the sand next to Charles chair, and opened it up.

Most of the shells inside were just pieces, but there was a whole silver dollar, and a beautiful conch shell with a bright coral colored underbelly.

“I saw you watching me out there, Charles,” Hawkeye smirked as he rummaged through his treasures. He batted his lashes playfully, “did you like my legs?”

Charles laughed.

“You call those toothpicks legs?” he scoffed, “how absurd.”

Charles pulled a book out and turned a few pages in it before beginning to read.

“What's absurd is you with that zinc oxide smeared all over your nose. You look like you've put your warpaint on and are gonna join Battle of the Tourists,” Hawkeye said.

Charles shook his head slowly.

“The only battle I shall have here, is whether to order the jerk chicken for dinner, or the conch salad,” Charles said, and then added thoughtfully, “perhaps conch salad for an appetizer, then jerk chicken for the main dish...”

“Jerk chicken for a jerk chicken,” Hawkeye said, “fitting, how fitting.”

“Oh, go on. The brunt of my surliness has worn off by now,” Charles said.

“The day you stop being surly, is the day I eat cream of weenie, and like it!” Hawkeye said.

“You might like it under the right circumstances,” Charles said, chortling as he hid behind his book.

Hawkeye's mouth dropped open as he attempted to process this. Had Charles just made such a lewd remark to him? Charles Emerson Winchester III? The epitome of dignity and propriety... surely not.

“Maybe I do, and maybe I don't,” Hawkeye said, once he was able to form a comeback.

The fact that it had taken Hawkeye so long to respond seemed to amuse Charles greatly.

“The great Hawkeye Pierce, speechless, at the hands—rather the lips—of Charles Emerson Winchester III,” Charles drawled.

“Yeah well, keep your lips to yourself,” Hawkeye warned playfully.

He swatted a bit of sand in Charles' direction, then sat down in it to build a sandcastle as though he was really just a gigantic, lanky, child.

Charles seemed pleased enough to just sit beneath the shade of his umbrella, pretending to read, while he watching Hawkeye erect towers and turrets of sand, and make believe there was a siege going on, complete with doing voices for several key members of the Beachside Kingdom.

Charles would never understand how Hawkeye could play like this—not only because Charles had never played much, not even as a child, but even still after all they'd been through with the war. How did Hawkeye manage to be able to revert to this carefree state?

Charles rolled his eyes, and lay his book down on his chest.

His admiration for Hawkeye was growing into something... more.

Perhaps he had realized that it had been for awhile now. He just didn't want to admit it. But now they were alone on a vacation together, staying on a private island, Charles could afford (literally) to be more open about certain things, so long as it didn't risk damaging this dear friendship they had forged.

He watched with a bit of a sad smile as Hawkeye brought his large, bare, feet down onto the sandcastle and destroyed it. Of course Charles was reading far too much into it, but it seemed that as easy as it was fore the sand to fall beneath one well placed foot, it was just as easy for ones life to fall.

His thoughts drifted back to Boston, to his career, to his ex-wife, to his childless future. He supposed this just meant he'd have even more time to devote to his career, but he imagined he would become very lonely. He wouldn't marry again, and any affair he carried on with a man would have to be highly secretive. He wasn't sure he would even risk it.

Hawkeye seemed to sense the shift in the mood and he went over and plopped himself down beneath the umbrella.

The shade fell over Hawkeye's warm skin and it felt cool and protective. He was already beginning to burn, but a vacation just wasn't a vacation unless one got a little toasty.

In an attempt to lighten Charles' plummeting mood, Hawkeye grabbed the tube of zinc oxide and smeared a strip of it above his lip like a mustache.

“That's still a better mustache than that thing Hunnicutt wore on his upper lip,” Charles said, immediately regretting the words as now it was Hawkeye's mood which fell.

Charles did have a stupendous way of sinking his foot right into his mouth.

“You... haven't heard from him... have you,” Charles said lowly, looking down at the dogeared pages of his book, rather than at Hawkeye.

Hawkeye sighed.

“Just once. One letter. I thought maybe he'd start writing regularly. I got obsessive about checking the post. Now... I guess it's shifted. It's your letters obsess over. At least you write to me,” Hawkeye said.

He picked up a chunk of broken shell from his treasure pile and lobbed it into the sand.

“Well, there's no one else who...” Charles began, shifted in his seat, and changed the direction of that thought as his blue eyes looked out upon the ocean, “of course I write to you. I've nothing better to do.”

“You enjoy it. Admit it, Chuckles, you enjoy writing to me.”

“I do not,” Charles insisted.

“Oh yes, you do! You do!” Hawkeye badgered him, taking victory in the small ghost of a smile he could see fighting for control of Charles' lips.

“You know, you're not so bad, Charles. Once you get past the pompous, overblown, windbag thing... you're not too bad.”

“I... suppose you're... tolerable... as well,” Charles said, “once you get over... everything.”

Hawkeye hopped up and grabbed Charles' book away from him, sat it aside, and tugged on his hand.

“Come on, Charles.”

Charles pressed a hand to his Panama hat to keep it on his head as Hawkeye yanked on him.

“Whatever for?”

“That water is amazing, and you're not going to sit here on the beach the entire time like a washed up beluga!” Hawkeye insisted.

“Are you implying that I'm 'washed up' or... that I'm a whale? I'll have you know I've trimmed down--”

“Come on Charles!”

“And I'm in my prime!”

“Charles! I'll carry you if I have to!”

Charles was being dragged out of his chair and nearer and nearer to the water, all the while with one hand on his hat to keep it on.

“There might be sharks out there!” Charles said, his Bostonian accent coming out strongly on the word 'sharks', punctuating with great concern.

“There weren't. I'm still in one piece. All I saw was some seaweed and maybe a jellyfish--”

“Jellyfish!” Charles and Hawkeye were having a tug-of-war with Charles' arm.

“Just a little one! A baby!”

Hawkeye managed to get Charles into the surf, just up to his knees, though the larger man looked very uncomfortable. Hawkeye's wet hair was drying to his forehead, and he smelled like salt, and had a piece of seaweed hanging from one ear. He looked simply ridiculous.

Hawkeye reached up and lifted the seaweed off of his ear, grabbed Charles' hat off of his head, and placed the seaweed atop it instead.

“Found a toupee for you,” he said, placing Charles' hat onto his own head, “looks very natural.”

-x-

By the time the sun was beginning to hang low and pink in the sky above the tepid waters, Charles had found them a place to eat. It looked like a little shack but it was alive with the sounds of laughter, music, and the scents of good food. Hawkeye ordered the jerk chicken, Charles ordered the conch salad, and they even shared a bit from each others plates, which surprised Hawkeye that Charles allowed this to happen.

His friend seemed to be growing just a bit more laid back. Hawkeye wondered smugly if that could be any of his doing, and teased Charles about it, who of course insisted that he certainly was not becoming 'laid back'. Perish the thought!

The restaurant had an open porch, and opened to the sand and the palms, with colorful lanterns hanging in the trees and swaying gently on the salty sea breeze. The sun was setting and Charles and Hawk could watch it framed by the porch from where they were sitting at the bar. The sky was afire with scalding reds, vibrant pink, and bright yellow-orange. It was stunning, and on the cooling sand, bare feet danced to the island song.

Hawkeye ordered a drink made in a coconut and decorated with at least three tiny umbrellas, while Charles ordered something more 'sophisticated' and drank it from a mug.

“To friends,” Hawkeye said, bonking his coconut drink to Charles' mug, and Charles dipped his head, nodding his consent, and drank to that.

They got a little too drunk, and Hawkeye dragged Charles out onto the sand when night had fallen, and made him dance beneath the palm trees and the glowing lanterns. They were having so much fun that it didn't matter how rowdy, or loud, or ridiculous they were being.

Hawkeye was extremely amused, as he had never seen Charles so drunk. He recalled the time Charles had gotten so plastered on a pass that he'd came back to the Swamp a married man. He must have been just about that intoxicated on this night, because a group of women got Charles to drink one of the silly coconut drinks and climb onto the bar and do a little hip swinging dance with them.

Hawkeye cheered enthusiastically and stuck his fingers between his teeth to let out a whooping wolf whistle.

He hoisted himself up from his chair and grabbed a slip of paper money and stuck it into Charles' waistband.

Charles would absolutely loathe him in the morning for doing such a thing, for what it implied, but for now the two men were just laughing and crying and having the fun that they needed.

They made it back to the little place they were staying at near morning, leaning on each other, somehow managing to move without falling. Once they were there they fell onto the nearest sleepable surface, which happened to be the floor, and woke up tangled around each other the next morning.

Neither of them suspected anything strange, after all they were both fully clothed, though Charles groaned as he sat up and held his head... and then with a confused expression, pulled a slip of paper money out of his waistband.

  
  


-x-

 

  
  


  
  


  
  


  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I'm just grumpy because I feel like this chapter sucks. Sorry D: )


	7. Knocked Flat and Up Again

_Now and then, for no good reason, life will haul off and knock a man flat. -Old Yeller 1957_

  
  


The morning was spent loafing around the beach house. Both men were nursing headaches, and the easy rolling waves sounded like they were crashing violently against jagged boulders. Luckily lazing about in the sand and the sun was just what both doctors had ordered.

Charles had taken residence in a hammock that was stretched between two palms and seemed to be enjoying his catnapping, while Hawkeye laid a towel out and began the enjoyable task of roasting himself.

Above them white and gray gulls circles and cried. A pelican swooped down to catch a fish from the blue-green waves. A brown speckled lizard with a curling tail crawled over Charles' bare foot and up one of the palm trees.

Hawkeye chuckled quietly to himself as he heard Charles snoring softly. He lifted leg and used his foot to push Charles' hammock. It swayed a little but Charles had his Panama hat down over his face and didn't seem to be waking up anytime soon. The inside of the hat was nice and dark, good for a hangover headache, and a nap.

About midday Hawkeye peeled himself up from his sandy towel and flipped Charles out of his hammock.

Both men were feeling a little better and decided to check out the local boardwalk and the shops along the way.

Buildings were bright and vibrant with color. The air smelled like fish which was being sold in open market, cleaned, and filleted on a nearby pier. The odor was strong and unmistakeable but somehow even that pungent whiff of fish smelled great beneath the golden sunshine.

Hawkeye looked over a few trinkets, and bought himself a straw hat with a colorful strip of cloth around it. They tried some of the local foods, and discovered a man offering fishing trips on his boat. It was no yacht and Charles wasn't easily convinced, but in the end, Hawkeye won out and both men boarded the vessel and spent a few hours at sea.

The salt wind whipped their hair up and the island grew smaller, and smaller, until they were just surrounded by the crystal teal waters, and the bright blue sky, just a couple of hazy, happy, clouds hanging near the horizon.

Charles hauled up a beautiful fish speckled red with white stripes, and black tipped fins and tail, and was told it was tiger grouper. Hawkeye caught a beautiful iridescent fish called a Creole wrasse, followed by a black grouper, which he bragged was larger than Charles' red one. Charles outdid him moments later by reeling in a long, sleek, silver bonefish with scales that glistened and winked in the sun like stacked and polished dimes.

They spent the boat ride back to the dock leaning on the railing and watching the water cut by like a sleek turquoise knife. They spotted silver schools of fish dancing beneath the water, and dolphins playing, and by the time they were back to the pier nothing remained of their hangovers.

The fish had been released back into the ocean so for dinner Charles purchased some fish from the open air market, and Hawkeye grilled them at their private little vacation spot, squeezing a lemon half over the fillets.

“Let's just stay here forever,” Hawkeye said, lifting his bottle of beer and taking a long swig. He held a spatula in his other hand, and was still wearing the straw hat with the bright band of fabric.

“It is almost paradise, isn't it?” Charles said.

He had moved his folding chair to sit near the grill, opposite direction that the breeze was wafting the smoke. He was supervising as Hawkeye did all the 'hard' work.

“Almost?” Hawkeye questioned, raising an eyebrow.

“Well... it's not Boston,” Charles said, “or Tokyo, but it's certainly made it into my top three,” he said.

“Good to know you approve,” Hawkeye said.

Dinner was simple but the fish was so fresh it was divine. Even Charles had nothing negative to say about it.

The next few days passed as easily as the first two. The men seemed to be enjoying themselves to the utmost extent.

But trouble seemed to find them, as chopper blades piercing the silence.

Upon their last day they were loafing about the boardwalk when screams and cries began to fill the area. People began to flock to the pier, and Charles and Hawkeye pushed through to the front, where they found three men surrounding another who was lying in a pool of blood with a gaping wound to his abdomen.

“What happened to this man?” Hawkeye asked, going into doctor-mode right off, and kneeling down to asses the damage.

His friends all began to talk at once. Hawkeye surmised the man had fallen off the boat during fishing, and he'd been ripped open by a shark before he could be rescued back into the boat.

“Please, gentlemen, if you'd calm down,” Charles said, holding his hands up palm out, and speaking in a tone of calm authority, “we're surgeons, we'll do our best to help your friend,” he said.

After asking a few more questions they were told the nearest medical center was miles and miles away, far too many miles to get the man there before dying.

“Alright, if we move him, his guts are gonna fall out,” Hawkeye said, as Charles knelt on the opposite side of the man, “we have to this right here. Everybody get back! Give us some room,” Hawkeye said.

The doctors asked for a bottle of rum, fishing line, and a raid through the fishermens tacklebox found a package of unopened bait needles. The rum was poured over the line and the needles, and some given to the injured man to try and anesthetize him a bit.

Then came the meatball surgery.

Charles and Hawkeye bent over their patient on the pier and using the tools of anglers rather than instruments of surgery, they began the long task of piecing together the mans insides.

Around them the teal sea and the smell of salt had been traded for the kind of banter they used to trade in the OR to keep sane. They picked at each other and needled each other but their hands worked in tune and in practiced rhythm, almost as though they could do this surgery blind folded.

For hours both men knelt on the old wooden beams, disregarding the pain in their knees, and hunched backs, and being forced to stick their bare hands into tissue and blood in order to put the bodily chaos to rights.

Once the man had stopped breathing, and Hawkeye had started CPR, while Charles remained wrist deep in gore, as Hawkeye demanded the fisherman to live.

The sun was beginning to go down by the time they were sewing the wounds closed.

People had been gathering around in crowds all day to watch the surgeons work and when they had finished cheers and shouts of joy rose up from the islanders.

The fisherman was alive and in one piece.

Charles and Hawkeye dragged themselves tiredly up the pier, after telling the mans friends to make sure he had rest, and stayed hydrated.

Both men stooped and washed their bloody hands in the surf, which didn't seem as beautiful and carefree a thing as it had before.

At least a shark wasn't a man trying to murder another man, killing and maiming in the stupidity of war. A shark was just an animal doing what came to it by nature. There wasn't anything natural about war, in fact, war spat in the face of nature and went completely against it.

Charles and Hawkeye were absolutely silent on the walk back to their beachside hideaway. They both seemed lost in their thoughts, and the joy they'd found there had been sucked away by a heavy dose of reality, and heavier doses of flashbacks.

“How do you do it, Charles?” Hawkeye asked when the arrived back, “how do you still go into the OR and do surgery every day? I came home and opened a family practice because... I'd be happy if I never had to see the insides of a human being spilling out of them ever again...” Hawkeye said, his voice rising a bit frantically with emotion.

“Most of those days in surgery, I may as well be in Korea,” Charles admitted, a defeated sigh rattling from him, admitting to Hawkeye that he had just as hard a time coping, “I suppose I try and disconnect myself from it. I focus on the task at hand. It's after the surgeries done, I come out of a sort of haze, and for a few moments... I'm often... confused about where I am,” Charles said, dropping heavily into a chair.

Hawkeye's face began to twist into something so pained that Charles looked away, and Hawkeye sat down beside Charles' chair, and began to cry.

“Why can't it leave us alone!” Hawkeye cried, “give me my life back! Give me my mind back!”

Charles knelt down beside Hawkeye and pulled him into his arms. Charles wasn't usually one for such emotional displays but he felt just as adrift and alone as Hawkeye did and here there was no one to see them clinging together so desperately.

-x-

The flight home was dismal. Charles and Hawkeye were reluctant to part, but both had separate places, and separate jobs, to return to.

Charles had considered making their getaway to the Bahamas a yearly holiday, but given the way it ended, with both of them tearful in each others arms, he was doubtful either of them would care to go back.

They fell back into their routine of letters, and phone calls, and missing the company of someone who could understand.

Both of them dated women, Hawkeye as some desperate need for normalcy, and to blow off steam, while Charles did so simply to keep up appearances. Neither of them had any intention of anything serious happening. Charles didn't have the right interest for it, and Hawkeye didn't care to settle down, but a void was opening in both mens life and they were each growing increasingly lonely.

To make maters worse, in January of '58 an intern at the hospital had taken an interest in Charles, soley for purposes of making the right sort of connections. Charles could commend him for that part of it. The bad part was that Charles was certain this was the most handsome and charming young man that he'd ever come across.

It was difficult to focus around him, and Charles was constantly on edge, fearing that some look or word would be taken the wrong way and that he'd reveal his inner most secret and ruin himself socially, and career-wise.

He wrote several letters to Hawkeye about this, but the most frantic communication came via a phone call, in which Charles seemed to be having a full on panic attack into the reciever.

“He came onto me,” Charles hissed into the phone, his breathing quick, and shallow.

“Charles, calm down, sit down... /breathe/,” Hawkeye said, talking with his hands even though Charles was in Boston on the other end of a switchboard and couldn't see him.

“Hawkeye, Brooks came onto me,” Charles repeated, “he's plotting to bring me down,” Charles sat down in his desk chair, but immediately got back up, and went to the office door to make sure it was tightly locked, “he wants my position as Head of Thoracic Surgery,” Charles paced, panic and paranoia eating at him.

“What makes you think that?” Hawkeye asked.

“Are you mad? This is a position of great prominence! What up and coming young doctor /wouldn't/ want it? You don't think—the switchboard operator had better not be listening in—I'm hanging up. I'll write.”

The phone banged down in Hawk's ear and he sighed.

“Great, Charles is gonna have an aneurism over this kid, and I'm stuck here with nothing to do but wait for a letter.”

The week was full of stress and anxiety as Hawkeye waited.

Charles hadn't even called him back to let him know if things were okay. He surely could have phoned him from his home phone, unless his mind was turning on him so fully that he was worried about the switchboard operator listening in on his home line as well.

Hawkeye haunted the post office and chewed his fingernails down to nothing until the letter finally arrived.

_Hawkeye,_

_I'm sorry I've not written you, or called you. I've been a bit under the weather. Forgive me for my neglect and the late arrival of this communication._

_I've been asked to take some time off from work. I fear that in my absence, I will be replaced. Why wouldn't they replace me with someone who is young, attractive, and unaffected by this mental rot! My biggest fear had always been that Korea would rob me my skill—that it would take my hands, or the ability to use them as I once had._

_Now I realize it's not my hands I should have been concerned over._

_I'm ashamed at the minefield my own mind has become to me. I am a highly intelligent individual, why I should be plagued with these things, these thoughts and feelings that I cannot dismiss, is beyond me. I am loathe to admit the state I am in to anyone but you, who could understand me without the harsh judgment I fear to garner from others, and that which I lay down upon my shoulders by my own doing._

_I am holding on to the knowledge that I must overcome this in order to keep my position in my career, and in my life. A Winchester must fight, and overcome, and I will not give in to this madness._

_I will not give in._

_The war may have ended upon the hellish land which we haunted in khaki, but it remains within us, the war to keep ourselves standing, and plodding onward._

_Please, do not phone. I will phone when I feel up to it._

_In the meantime, I would so appreciate it if you would continue to write._

_-Charles_

Hawkeye was immediately worried for his friend. He wanted to get on a plane to Boston right then. He was sure the letter spoke to Charles having some sort of mental collapse, and Hawkeye knew just how that was, and how isolated it made one to feel.

Charles was likely dealing with this in the peace of his own home, at least. He was comforted to know that it was highly unlikely that Charles was going to get locked up anywhere the way Hawkeye had been. But the fact that _Winchester_ of all people, had been brought so low by the damned war and the horrors they'd face... it was extremely unsettling.

Of course Hawkeye had never played up to Charles beliefs that he was something above the rest of them. He knew that Charles was merely as human as the rest of them. But Charles was perhaps the most stubborn human Hawkeye had ever met. It took a lot to bring down someone with that sort of pride.

_Charles,_

_You're the most stubborn man I know. You're even more stubborn than Klinger used to be about getting that Section 8. Seems like by now you and I both could have gotten it for him. Listen, I'm not happy you won't take my phone calls, but I guess I have to respect your arrogant wishes._

_You ought to let your wall down just a little and let somebody be around for you._

_Maybe you do know what you're doing though. I'm not sure I'd be any help. We'd probably both end up wallowing together. You really don't know the depths of my psychological cracks. I guess we're not so different. There's plenty I don't want you to see about me either._

_Just take care of yourself, Charles._

_For some reason you've become kind of important to me, okay?_

_Don't think about anything drastic. That doesn't seem like the 'Winchester' way, but I think we both know you're just Charles deep down. I'm worried about what Charles might do._

_Don't you dare do anything stupid._

_Don't leave me without saying goodbye._

_I would never forgive you for something like that._

_Keep your bald head up if it's not too big. If you decide you're human and actually need someone, you know who to ring._

_I'll give you Sidney's home phone number._

_-Hawkeye_

  
  


-x-

In Boston, Charles was in a pathetic state.

He couldn't believe that he'd made such a fool of himself that he'd been asked to take time off in order to 'collect himself'. Maybe he really should have made that vacation plan with Hawkeye a yearly plan. This was about the same time they'd gone last year.

But why on Earth was Charles brought down to this level of suffering by a handsome little worm like Brooks? Charles had gone from being infatuated with the brat, to completely loathing him. If not for Brooks, Charles would have been just fine. But Brooks threatened him in ways he could not explain. It was as though when Brooks looked at Charles, the intern just _knew_ his leanings and could tell them to the world and ruin him.

Things had just gotten so bad that Charles had though Brooks was flirting with him at every turn. One simple 'hello' in the hallway, and Brooks was trying to out him. Charles was having a hard time realizing whether that was true, or his mind playing tricks on him. At any rate he was hating himself and wondering when and why he had become such a weak and pathetic thing, lying in his bed with drapes drawn, and a bottle of cognac.

He hadn't drank (to get drunk) since he'd been married to Priscilla, not counting last years trip to the Bahamas with Hawkeye.

Now there empty cognac and wine bottles on Charles' bedroom floor and he'd been holed up in there for days mourning. He wasn't even sure what he was mourning for, but he knew the feeling, and that's what it felt like.

“You're being pathetic, Winchester!” he barked at the ceiling, too full of cognac, and too exhausted to sleep, “pathetic! A Winchester does not--”

Charles leaned suddenly over the side of his bed became violently ill. After a moment of heaving and heavy breathing he lay back down and moaned.

“A Winchester does not vomit...” he said, closing his eyes.

He supposed what he'd been trying to tell himself was that a Winchester did not wallow. But for some reason he was breaking his own rule and doing it anyway.

After another day in bed he finally got up and groaned as he realized what a mess he and the room had become. He dragged himself to the soaker tub and stayed in it for hours before finally rising, feeling clean and a bit refreshed, then he tidied his room up himself, and went downstairs to think clearly for the first time in over a week.

As he saw it he had three options: get these ridiculous, paranoid, ideas out of his head an function as a normal human being, give up his position and become a total basket case, or transfer.

The first and last options were obviously the best ones to give proper thought to. There were certainly other hospitals in Boston where Charles could work in his desired position. It was just that the position he had now had always been his dream job and part of him didn't feel right to let it go.

Yet maybe this break was his way of telling himself that it was time to move on to something else.

Charles skill and connections could get him a job anywhere, not just in Boston, and as the week wore on he began to consider that as well.

He spent a lot of time taking long, quiet, walks along the Charles River, and through the beautiful Boston Public Gardens. He felt better when he got himself out of the house and tried to think about things from a logical standpoint.

Spring in the Boston Public Gardens was simply gorgeous. Lines of gold and scarlet tulips lead up the walkway to the towering bronze statue of George Washington mounted upon his steed. Across the lawn behind the monument were squat shrubs dotting the grass, manicured to perfection, and across the back edge along Beacon Street was a line of weeping willows, and magnolia trees blossoming white and pink, against the Boston city skyline.

Charles sat down upon a bench and admired his beloved city. It made his heart feel so much better to remember his love for it.

Behind him was the Lagoon (a small pond, really) with the stone bridge over it. The bridge was especially beautiful at night, with the tall streetlamps with their globe like covers atop the bridges towers glowing like tiny moons. The swan boat was cruising the Lagoon lazily, passing under the bridge, as Charles thought over his plans for the future.

Upon the bright green lawns and behind the shrubbery children played chase, or students walked arm and arm, laughing, talking, discussing their own bright futures.

Charles wasn't sure he was willing to give this up, but something needed to change. The more he truly considered where he was at this point in his life, the more he knew it to be true.

He looked down at the leather bound journal in his lap and opened it. Half of the pages were torn out of it, and that's because this was his latest journal in which he wrote letters to Hawkeye. He drew his fingers slowly over the new blank page. He could feel the minute indentations from where the nib of his pen unfurling inky scrip onto the page above had left impressions.

He pulled his favorite fountain pen from the pocket of his suit jacket. It was embossed with _Charles E. Winchester III, Ph.D.,_ in a slanting gold script and had been a gift from Honoria upon his graduation from Harvard.

_Dear Hawkeye,_

_I am considering a rather drastic life change. Perhaps it is time for me to transfer, to see what gems the Eastern U.S. has to offer me besides my beloved crown jewel, Boston._

_My parents grow old and we have never had a close bond. Honoria is gone with her beautiful family halfway across the continent, and any friendships I have here are merely social connections forged for my own benefit, not true friendships which hold any truly significant meaning for me._

_All I have is my career here, a career which I could have anywhere, and Boston itself. Though I will always be in love with her, I am unsure it is enough to keep me rooted here at this point in time. I feel I must try something different if I am to move along in my life and not to stagnate and lose my head._

_Therefore, I am planning a trip your way. Though I suppose your little slice of small town paradise must be endearing in its own way, I'd rather visit the nearest actual city, and consider my options there._

_I'll be leaving for Portland as soon as possible, and I will keep you updated as to the specific date and time of my arrival. I plan to investigate opportunities in Augusta, and Portland, during my stay._

_-Charles_

He'd been doing some research, pulling out his maps, and Augusta was merely an hour from Crabapple Cove, Portland about an hour and a half. He'd be near enough to a dear friend, and a place he could head to if he needed space to breath, and a slower pace of life than the busy city offered. The more he considered it, the better and better the idea sounded.

He only wished that he could take a bit of Boston with him.

Charles rose from his bench and took the footpath across the bridge, over the Lagoon, and found a spot where the tulips were particularly bright and glorious. While no one was watching, he plucked a golden petal, and placed it in the back of his journal to dry out.

He supposed that would have to suffice as his little bit of Boston on the run.

-x-

  
  


 


End file.
